nứa chôi sông chẳng giập thì gẫy
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
A person will either succeed or fail completely
Literally: bamboo pole in the river, if not sunk then broken
Examples
Anh ấy đầu tư tất cả vào dự án, nứa chôi sông chẳng giập thì gẫy.He invested everything in the project, it's all or nothing.
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 “nứa chôi sông chẳng giập thì gẫy” mean?
A person will either succeed or fail completely Literally: bamboo pole in the river, if not sunk then broken
Is “nứa chôi sông chẳng giập thì gẫy” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.