Tiếng Việt · Proverb Attested

đói đầu gối hay bò

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

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Hunger teaches the knees to crawl — necessity is the body's own instructor.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Sự cần thiết là giáo viên của cơ thể

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: hungry, the knees learn to crawl

Examples

Đói đầu gối hay bò, túng thì phải tính.Hunger teaches knees to crawl — want invents its way.

Editorial example (VI sweep batch 040, illustrative)

Sources & notes

Discovered via Tục ngữ, cổ ngữ, gia ngôn (Huỳnh Tịnh Của, 1897; public domain, via vi.wikisource); retrieved 2026-08-01. Source: source ↗ Attested in Tục ngữ, cổ ngữ, gia ngôn (Huỳnh Tịnh Của, 1897). Definition is an original editorial synthesis, not copied from the source.

Common questions

What does “đói đầu gối hay bò” mean?

Hunger teaches the knees to crawl — necessity is the body's own instructor. Literally: hungry, the knees learn to crawl

Is “đói đầu gối hay bò” formal or informal?

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

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