Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

ngọn tầy bồ, gốc tầy tăm

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

The consequences of a small mistake can be severe

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Hậu quả của một sai lầm nhỏ có thể nghiêm trọng

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: tip of the reed, root of the rattan

Examples

Anh ấy chỉ làm một lỗi nhỏ, nhưng ngọn tầy bồ, gốc tầy tăm, khiến công ty mất một hợp đồng lớnHe made only a small mistake, but it had severe consequences, causing the company to lose a big contract

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 “ngọn tầy bồ, gốc tầy tăm” mean?

The consequences of a small mistake can be severe Literally: tip of the reed, root of the rattan

Is “ngọn tầy bồ, gốc tầy tăm” formal or informal?

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

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