堂堂正正
táng táng zhèng zhèng
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Open, honest and dignified, with nothing to hide. Describes a person of upright character, or a way of doing something properly and in the open rather than by underhand means.
Ngay thẳng, đàng hoàng, không có gì phải giấu giếm. Dùng để nói về con người chính trực hoặc cách làm việc công khai, đúng đắn, không lén lút.
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): etymology of “đường đường chính chính” = 堂堂正正 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “đường đường chính chính” (duong-duong-chinh-chinh). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “堂堂正正” mean?
Open, honest and dignified, with nothing to hide. Describes a person of upright character, or a way of doing something properly and in the open rather than by underhand means. Literally: stately and upright (each word doubled)
Is “堂堂正正” formal or informal?
堂堂正正 is generally neutral.