tiền hết gạo không, khôn-ngoan rùa mốc
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Being poor and lacking wisdom
Literally: no money, no rice, clever like a moldy turtle
Examples
Anh ấy tiền hết gạo không, khôn-ngoan rùa mốc, không biết làm gì trong cuộc sống.He has no money, no rice, and is as wise as a moldy turtle, doesn't know what to do in life.
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 “tiền hết gạo không, khôn-ngoan rùa mốc” mean?
Being poor and lacking wisdom Literally: no money, no rice, clever like a moldy turtle
Is “tiền hết gạo không, khôn-ngoan rùa mốc” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.