Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

Tượng chết vì ngà, điểu chết vì lông

🎙 Say it

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Something is destroyed because of its own valuable part

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Bị hủy hoại vì chính phần quý giá của mình

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Elephant dies because of tusks, bird dies because of feathers

Examples

Con voi bị săn vì ngà nên người ta nói tượng chết vì ngà, điểu chết vì lôngThe elephant is hunted for its tusks, so people say an elephant dies because of its tusks, a bird because of its feathers

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Headword listed in the vdict.com proverb dictionary index (discovery source; headword only — no source content copied). Entered as candidate 2026-08-05; definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-08; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “Tượng chết vì ngà, điểu chết vì lông” mean?

Something is destroyed because of its own valuable part Literally: Elephant dies because of tusks, bird dies because of feathers

Is “Tượng chết vì ngà, điểu chết vì lông” formal or informal?

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

👁 Views 0 today 0 past 7 days 0 this month 0 all time