守株待兔
shǒu zhū dài tù
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
📖 Read the story behind this idiom: Waiting by the stump
To wait for a lucky accident to repeat itself instead of making an effort; to sit and hope for a windfall. Used to criticise people who stay passive and count on good fortune.
Ôm gốc cây chờ thỏ: ngồi chờ may mắn tình cờ lặp lại thay vì tự mình cố gắng. Dùng để chê người thụ động, chỉ trông vào vận may.
Register: neutral
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): Hán-Việt reading 守 = thủ, 株 = chu, 兔 = thố · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “thủ chu đãi thố” (thu-chu-dai-tho). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “守株待兔” mean?
To wait for a lucky accident to repeat itself instead of making an effort; to sit and hope for a windfall. Used to criticise people who stay passive and count on good fortune. Literally: keep watch by the stump, wait for a hare
Is “守株待兔” formal or informal?
守株待兔 is generally neutral.