thả sắt bắt cá-sộp
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To sacrifice something small to gain something bigger
Literally: release iron to catch catfish
Examples
Anh ta thả sắt bắt cá-sộp khi đầu tư vào công ty mớiHe sacrificed something small to gain something bigger when investing in the new company
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 “thả sắt bắt cá-sộp” mean?
To sacrifice something small to gain something bigger Literally: release iron to catch catfish
Is “thả sắt bắt cá-sộp” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.