刻骨铭心
kè gǔ míng xīn
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 刻骨銘心
Felt so deeply that it can never be forgotten. Used for love, gratitude, pain or lessons that leave a permanent mark on a person.
Khắc vào xương, ghi vào tim: in sâu trong lòng, suốt đời không quên. Dùng cho tình yêu, ơn nghĩa, nỗi đau hay bài học để lại dấu ấn không phai.
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 ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): Hán-Việt reading 铭/銘 = minh; etymology of “khắc cốt minh tâm” = 刻骨銘心 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “khắc cốt minh tâm” (khac-cot-minh-tam). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “刻骨铭心” mean?
Felt so deeply that it can never be forgotten. Used for love, gratitude, pain or lessons that leave a permanent mark on a person. Literally: cut into the bone, inscribed on the heart
Is “刻骨铭心” formal or informal?
刻骨铭心 is generally neutral.