sơ chẳng ra, rà chẳng thấy

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

completely lost or unable to find something

Literally: initially not appear, search not see

Examples

Tôi đã tìm kiếm khắp nơi nhưng sơ chẳng ra, rà chẳng thấy chiếc điện thoại của mìnhI've searched everywhere but my phone is nowhere to be found

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 “sơ chẳng ra, rà chẳng thấy” mean?

completely lost or unable to find something Literally: initially not appear, search not see

Is “sơ chẳng ra, rà chẳng thấy” formal or informal?

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