事
shì
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
A piece of business: something that happens, or something you have to do. 我有事 'I'm tied up' is a common polite excuse, and 没事 means 'no problem, I'm fine'. The measure word is 件 (一件事), and the longer 事情 (shìqing) means the same.
Việc, chuyện: điều xảy ra hoặc điều mình phải làm, phải lo. 我有事 (tôi có việc bận) là cách từ chối lịch sự, 没事 là “không sao đâu”. Lượng từ là 件 (一件事: một việc); 事情 (shìqing) cũng cùng nghĩa.
NounRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “事” mean?
A piece of business: something that happens, or something you have to do. 我有事 'I'm tied up' is a common polite excuse, and 没事 means 'no problem, I'm fine'. The measure word is 件 (一件事), and the longer 事情 (shìqing) means the same.
Is “事” formal or informal?
事 is generally neutral.