English · Word pair Candidate A2

instead of

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

In place of something or someone

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Thay cho một thứ hoặc một người nào đó

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: in the place of

Examples

She seemed to be wallowing in her grief instead of trying to recover from the disaster.Cô ấy dường như vẫn đắm chìm trong đau khổ, thay vì phải bình tĩnh lại sau điều bất hạnh.

I usually use a credit card instead of cash.Bình thường tôi không dùng tiền mặt mà tôi dùng thẻ tín dụng.

Tatoeba sentence #1280961 (CC BY 2.0 FR, tatoeba.org, retrieved 2026-07-31)

Sources & notes

Everyday learner phrase (CEFR A2); level cross-referenced from published learner lists. Definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-01; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “instead of” mean?

In place of something or someone Literally: in the place of

Is “instead of” formal or informal?

instead of is generally neutral.