Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

nhiều tiền thì mua hoàng-cầm, hoàng-kỳ, ít tiền thì mua trần-bì, chỉ-sác

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

One can afford luxuries with ample money, but settles for basics with little

Literally: much money buy musk, amber, little money buy agarwood, silk

Examples

Anh ấy có nhiều tiền nên nhiều tiền thì mua hoàng-cầm, hoàng-kỳ, ít tiền thì mua trần-bì, chỉ-sác không còn đúng với anh ấyHe has a lot of money, so the saying many money then buy musk, amber, little money then buy agarwood, silk no longer applies to him

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 “nhiều tiền thì mua hoàng-cầm, hoàng-kỳ, ít tiền thì mua trần-bì, chỉ-sác” mean?

One can afford luxuries with ample money, but settles for basics with little Literally: much money buy musk, amber, little money buy agarwood, silk

Is “nhiều tiền thì mua hoàng-cầm, hoàng-kỳ, ít tiền thì mua trần-bì, chỉ-sác” formal or informal?

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