三纲五常
sān gāng wǔ cháng
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 三綱五常
The core of traditional Confucian ethics: three bonds (ruler over subject, father over son, husband over wife) plus five unchanging virtues. Now met mainly in history and in criticism of the old order.
Ba giềng mối (vua tôi, cha con, chồng vợ) và năm đức thường hằng (nhân, nghĩa, lễ, trí, tín) của Nho giáo. Nay chủ yếu gặp khi bàn về lịch sử hoặc khi phê phán lễ giáo phong kiến.
Register: formal
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (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 “tam cương ngũ thường” = 三綱五常 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “tam cương ngũ thường” (tam-cuong-ngu-thuong). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “三纲五常” mean?
The core of traditional Confucian ethics: three bonds (ruler over subject, father over son, husband over wife) plus five unchanging virtues. Now met mainly in history and in criticism of the old order. Literally: three guiding ropes, five constants
Is “三纲五常” formal or informal?
三纲五常 is generally formal.