English · Idiom Candidate

bring a knife to a gunfight

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

to be poorly prepared for a situation

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

chưa chuẩn bị đầy đủ cho tình huống

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: arriving with a knife to a fight where guns are used

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

He tried to negotiate with the corporation, but he brought a knife to a gunfight

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “bring a knife to a gunfight” mean?

to be poorly prepared for a situation Literally: arriving with a knife to a fight where guns are used

Is “bring a knife to a gunfight” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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