Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

Mất tiền mua gỗ thì bổ lấy dao

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Suffering a loss to gain something insignificant

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Chịu lỗ để được một thứ không đáng kể

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Losing money to buy wood then splitting it to get a knife

Examples

Anh ấy bán xe để mua điện thoại, mất tiền mua gỗ thì bổ lấy dao thật.He sold his car to buy a phone, what a loss to gain something insignificant.

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

Sources & notes

Headword listed in the vdict.com proverb dictionary index (discovery source; headword only — no source content copied). Entered as candidate 2026-08-05; definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-07; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “Mất tiền mua gỗ thì bổ lấy dao” mean?

Suffering a loss to gain something insignificant Literally: Losing money to buy wood then splitting it to get a knife

Is “Mất tiền mua gỗ thì bổ lấy dao” formal or informal?

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

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