Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

Hoài thóc giống đổ cho vay, hoài chân tay đắp thành nhà Mạc

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Investing effort in the wrong place

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Đầu tư công sức vào nơi không phù hợp

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Throwing rice seeds to borrow, using hands and feet to build Mac's fortress

Examples

Anh ấy đã hoài thóc giống đổ cho vay, hoài chân tay đắp thành nhà Mạc khi đầu tư vào dự án đóHe invested effort in the wrong place when investing in that project

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 “Hoài thóc giống đổ cho vay, hoài chân tay đắp thành nhà Mạc” mean?

Investing effort in the wrong place Literally: Throwing rice seeds to borrow, using hands and feet to build Mac's fortress

Is “Hoài thóc giống đổ cho vay, hoài chân tay đắp thành nhà Mạc” formal or informal?

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

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