vắt chân chữ ngũ, đánh củ khoai-lang
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To work very hard but earn very little
Literally: squeeze the fifth toe, hit the sweet potato stem
Examples
Ông ấy vắt chân chữ ngũ, đánh củ khoai-lang cả ngày mà chẳng được gìHe worked very hard all day, but got almost nothing
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 “vắt chân chữ ngũ, đánh củ khoai-lang” mean?
To work very hard but earn very little Literally: squeeze the fifth toe, hit the sweet potato stem
Is “vắt chân chữ ngũ, đánh củ khoai-lang” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.