English · Idiom Candidate

fish in troubled waters

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To take advantage of a confusing or uncertain situation

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Lợi dụng tình huống phức tạp hoặc không chắc chắn

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to fish in waters that are disturbed

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Thus the USSR would be able to fish profitably in the troubled waters of economic chaos.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Equivalents & related

Near equivalent mượn gió bẻ măng to fish in troubled waters Tiếng Việt Near equivalent nước đục thả câu to fish in troubled waters Tiếng Việt Near equivalent thừa nước đục thả câu to fish in troubled waters Tiếng Việt Near equivalent file off the serial numbers To modify something to conceal its origin or source English · via mượn gió bẻ măng

Lighter cards are two steps away in the meaning graph — equivalents of equivalents, reached via the entry shown on the card.

Topics: Water Fish

Common questions

What does “fish in troubled waters” mean?

To take advantage of a confusing or uncertain situation Literally: to fish in waters that are disturbed

Is “fish in troubled waters” formal or informal?

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

What is the closest equivalent?

“mượn gió bẻ măng” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.