心高气傲
xīn gāo qì ào
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 心高氣傲
Proud and ambitious, with a superior manner: thinking so highly of your own ability that you will not accept advice, defeat or a modest position. Mildly critical; often said of talented young people.
Tự đánh giá mình rất cao, kiêu hãnh, không chịu thua kém hay nghe lời ai. Mang ý chê nhẹ, hay dùng để nói về người trẻ có tài mà kiêu.
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 ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): etymology of “tâm cao khí ngạo” = 心高氣傲 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “tâm cao khí ngạo” (tam-cao-khi-ngao). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “心高气傲” mean?
Proud and ambitious, with a superior manner: thinking so highly of your own ability that you will not accept advice, defeat or a modest position. Mildly critical; often said of talented young people. Literally: heart set high, temper proud
Is “心高气傲” formal or informal?
心高气傲 is generally neutral.