名正言顺
míng zhèng yán shùn
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 名正言順
Fully legitimate and justified, with a proper title or reason behind it. Used when someone has the right to do something openly.
Có danh nghĩa đàng hoàng, hợp lẽ nên làm gì cũng chính đáng. Dùng khi ai đó có đủ tư cách, lý do để công khai làm một việc.
Register: formal
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 061 (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): etymology of “danh chính ngôn thuận” = 名正言順 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “danh chính ngôn thuận” (danh-chinh-ngon-thuan). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “名正言顺” mean?
Fully legitimate and justified, with a proper title or reason behind it. Used when someone has the right to do something openly. Literally: name correct, words in order
Is “名正言顺” formal or informal?
名正言顺 is generally formal.