装模作样
zhuāng mó zuò yàng
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 裝模作樣
To pretend; to strike a pose and behave in an affected way in order to impress or to deceive. A common, mildly scornful criticism of someone who is only acting a part.
Làm bộ làm tịch, cố tỏ ra một vẻ nào đó để gây ấn tượng hoặc che mắt người khác. Là lời chê thường ngày, có ý coi thường kẻ chỉ giả vờ.
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 “trang mô tác dạng” (trang-mo-tac-dang). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “装模作样” mean?
To pretend; to strike a pose and behave in an affected way in order to impress or to deceive. A common, mildly scornful criticism of someone who is only acting a part. Literally: put on a look, strike a pose
Is “装模作样” formal or informal?
装模作样 is generally neutral.