Chinese · Idiom Attested

大器晚成

dà qì wǎn chéng

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Great talent takes a long time to mature: a late bloomer. Used to describe or to encourage someone who succeeds later in life.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Đồ lớn thì lâu mới làm xong: người có tài lớn thường thành đạt muộn. Dùng để nói về, hoặc để động viên, người thành công khi đã có tuổi.

Literally: a great vessel is finished late

Examples

他四十岁才出名，真是大器晚成。Tā sìshí suì cái chūmíng, zhēn shì dà qì wǎn chéng.He only became famous at forty — a true late bloomer.

Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check

Sources & notes

Hán-Việt bridge batch 061 (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 “đại khí vãn thành” (dai-khi-van-thanh). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.

Equivalents & related

Hán-Việt cognate đại khí vãn thành Great vessels finish late — the largest talents are longest on the wheel. Tiếng Việt

Common questions

What does “大器晚成” mean?

Great talent takes a long time to mature: a late bloomer. Used to describe or to encourage someone who succeeds later in life. Literally: a great vessel is finished late

Is “大器晚成” formal or informal?

大器晚成 is generally neutral.

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