朝三暮四
zhāo sān mù sì
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
📖 Read the story behind this idiom: Three in the morning
Fickle; always changing one's mind or loyalties. The fable behind it was about fooling others by repackaging the same offer, but today it criticises people who cannot stick to one job, plan or partner.
Sáng ba chiều bốn: nay thế này mai thế khác, hay thay đổi ý định hoặc tình cảm. Vốn chỉ việc dùng mẹo đánh lừa người khác; nay chủ yếu dùng để chê người không kiên định trong công việc, tình yêu.
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): Hán-Việt reading 朝 = triêu · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “triều tam mộ tứ” (trieu-tam-mo-tu). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “朝三暮四” mean?
Fickle; always changing one's mind or loyalties. The fable behind it was about fooling others by repackaging the same offer, but today it criticises people who cannot stick to one job, plan or partner. Literally: three in the morning, four in the evening
Is “朝三暮四” formal or informal?
朝三暮四 is generally neutral.