见利忘义
jiàn lì wàng yì
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 見利忘義
To forget loyalty, friendship and what is right as soon as there is money to be made. A harsh criticism of people who betray others or break their word for profit.
Thấy lợi là quên hết đạo nghĩa, tình nghĩa. Lời chê nặng dành cho kẻ vì tiền bạc, quyền lợi mà phản bội người khác hoặc nuốt lời.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “kiến lợi vong ngãi” (kien-loi-vong-ngai). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “见利忘义” mean?
To forget loyalty, friendship and what is right as soon as there is money to be made. A harsh criticism of people who betray others or break their word for profit. Literally: at the sight of gain, forget honour
Is “见利忘义” formal or informal?
见利忘义 is generally neutral.