Dở thì vàng son, ngon thì mật mỡ

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Something of poor quality is overpraised, while something good is understated.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Điều kém chất lượng được khen ngợi quá mức, điều tốt thì bị đánh giá thấp

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Bad things are decorated with gold and vermilion, good things are mixed with honey and lard

Examples

Cô ấy nói Dở thì vàng son, ngon thì mật mỡ về cách đánh giá phim mới.She said 'Dở thì vàng son, ngon thì mật mỡ' about the way the new movie was reviewed.

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 2026-08-06; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “Dở thì vàng son, ngon thì mật mỡ” mean?

Something of poor quality is overpraised, while something good is understated. Literally: Bad things are decorated with gold and vermilion, good things are mixed with honey and lard

Is “Dở thì vàng son, ngon thì mật mỡ” formal or informal?

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

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