English · Proverb Candidate

don't burn the candle at both ends

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To exhaust oneself by doing too many things at once

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

vận động quá mức bằng cách làm quá nhiều việc cùng một lúc

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: burning a candle at both ends

Examples

She's been working and partying non-stop, don't burn the candle at both ends

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

Sources & notes

Listed on English Wikiquote “English proverbs” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31). Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “don't burn the candle at both ends” mean?

To exhaust oneself by doing too many things at once Literally: burning a candle at both ends

Is “don't burn the candle at both ends” formal or informal?

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

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