心服口服
xīn fú kǒu fú
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
To be completely convinced, sincerely and not just in words. Used when you fully accept someone's skill, argument or victory.
Phục cả trong lòng lẫn ngoài miệng, tức là hoàn toàn chịu phục. Dùng khi thật lòng công nhận tài năng, lý lẽ hay chiến thắng của người khác.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 061 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): etymology of “tâm phục khẩu phục” = 心服口服 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “tâm phục khẩu phục” (tam-phuc-khau-phuc). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “心服口服” mean?
To be completely convinced, sincerely and not just in words. Used when you fully accept someone's skill, argument or victory. Literally: heart submits, mouth submits
Is “心服口服” formal or informal?
心服口服 is generally neutral.