lấp sông lấp giếng ai lấp được miệng

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Meaning · English

Dam the river, cap the well — but who dams a mouth — gossip is the one flood without an engineering solution.

Literally: fill river and well: who fills the mouth

Examples

Lấp sông lấp giếng, ai lấp được miệng thiên hạ.Rivers can be dammed — mouths cannot.

Editorial example (VI sweep batch 040, illustrative)

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 is an original editorial synthesis, not copied from the source.

Common questions

What does “lấp sông lấp giếng ai lấp được miệng” mean?

Dam the river, cap the well — but who dams a mouth — gossip is the one flood without an engineering solution. Literally: fill river and well: who fills the mouth

Is “lấp sông lấp giếng ai lấp được miệng” formal or informal?

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