không có cá lấy cua làm trọng

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Make the best of a bad situation

Literally: no fish, use crab as main

Examples

Khi không có việc làm, anh ấy quyết định không có cá lấy cua làm trọng và mở một quán ăn nhỏ.When he couldn't find a job, he decided to make the best of it and opened a small restaurant.

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Discovered via Nam ngạn chích cẩm (Phạm Quang Sán, 1918; public domain, via vi.wikisource); retrieved 2026-08-01. Source: source ↗ Attested in Nam ngạn chích cẩm (Phạm Quang Sán, 1918). 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 “không có cá lấy cua làm trọng” mean?

Make the best of a bad situation Literally: no fish, use crab as main

Is “không có cá lấy cua làm trọng” formal or informal?

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