người chẳng ra người, ngợm chẳng ra ngợm
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Neither one thing nor the other
Literally: person not being a person, ngợm not being ngợm
Examples
Anh ấy học không thành công, làm cũng không giỏi, thật là người chẳng ra người, ngợm chẳng ra ngợm.He didn't succeed in studying, and didn't do well at work, truly neither one thing nor the other
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 “người chẳng ra người, ngợm chẳng ra ngợm” mean?
Neither one thing nor the other Literally: person not being a person, ngợm not being ngợm
Is “người chẳng ra người, ngợm chẳng ra ngợm” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.