trâu toi bò ngã

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

When one person fails, others will follow

Literally: buffalo falls, cow falls

Examples

Khi chủ tịch công ty bị sa thải, nhiều nhân viên khác cũng bị ảnh hưởng, trâu toi bò ngã.When the company's chairman was fired, many other employees were also affected, trâu toi bò ngã.

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 “trâu toi bò ngã” mean?

When one person fails, others will follow Literally: buffalo falls, cow falls

Is “trâu toi bò ngã” formal or informal?

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