小人得志
xiǎo rén dé zhì
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
A mean, small-minded person has gained power or success and now behaves arrogantly. A scornful comment on someone who lords it over others after getting ahead.
Kẻ tiểu nhân gặp thời, có được quyền thế hay thành công rồi lên mặt, hống hách. Lời nhận xét khinh miệt dành cho kẻ vừa đắc ý đã coi thường người khác.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “tiểu nhơn đắc chí” (tieu-nhon-dac-chi). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “小人得志” mean?
A mean, small-minded person has gained power or success and now behaves arrogantly. A scornful comment on someone who lords it over others after getting ahead. Literally: a petty person achieves his ambition
Is “小人得志” formal or informal?
小人得志 is generally neutral.