Đem tấc gươm cùn mà đun vào lửa, đem con người thửa mà vứt vào lò

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

To take something useless and try to make it useful

Literally: Take a dull sword to sharpen in fire, take a broken person to throw into a furnace

Examples

Người ta đem tấc gươm cùn mà đun vào lửa, đem con người thửa mà vứt vào lò để sửa đổi họPeople take a dull sword to sharpen in fire, take a broken person to throw into a furnace to reform them

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

Sources & notes

Headword listed in the vdict.com proverb dictionary index (discovery source; headword only — no source content copied). Entered as candidate 2026-08-05; definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-08; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “Đem tấc gươm cùn mà đun vào lửa, đem con người thửa mà vứt vào lò” mean?

To take something useless and try to make it useful Literally: Take a dull sword to sharpen in fire, take a broken person to throw into a furnace

Is “Đem tấc gươm cùn mà đun vào lửa, đem con người thửa mà vứt vào lò” formal or informal?

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

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