有名无实
yǒu míng wú shí
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 有名無實
Existing in name only, with no real power, substance or effect behind it. Used for titles, organisations, rules or marriages that are only for show.
Chỉ có cái tên, cái danh chứ không có thực chất hay thực quyền. Dùng cho chức vụ, tổ chức, quy định hoặc cuộc hôn nhân chỉ còn là hình thức.
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 “hữu danh vô thực” = 有名無實 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “hữu danh vô thực” (huu-danh-vo-thuc). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “有名无实” mean?
Existing in name only, with no real power, substance or effect behind it. Used for titles, organisations, rules or marriages that are only for show. Literally: has the name, lacks the substance
Is “有名无实” formal or informal?
有名无实 is generally neutral.