English · Proverb Candidate

if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Something that seems perfect or ideal is likely to be false or misleading

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Điều gì似乎 hoàn hảo thì có khả năng là sai hoặc lừa đảo

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Examples

She was skeptical of the investment opportunity because if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

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 “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” mean?

Something that seems perfect or ideal is likely to be false or misleading

Is “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” formal or informal?

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

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