措手不及
cuò shǒu bù jí
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Caught unprepared: something happens so suddenly that there is no time to react. Used for surprise attacks, sudden news, questions or changes that catch people off guard.
Trở tay không kịp: việc xảy ra quá đột ngột nên không kịp đối phó. Dùng cho đòn tấn công bất ngờ, tin tức, câu hỏi hay thay đổi đột ngột khiến người ta bị động.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “thố thủ bất cập” (tho-thu-bat-cap). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “措手不及” mean?
Caught unprepared: something happens so suddenly that there is no time to react. Used for surprise attacks, sudden news, questions or changes that catch people off guard. Literally: no time to put one's hands to it
Is “措手不及” formal or informal?
措手不及 is generally neutral.