Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Ungrateful, thankless: Describes a person who does not show gratitude or appreciation for kindness or help received.
   • Unrewarding, unappreciated: Describes a task, job, or situation that does not bring due recognition, reward, or satisfaction.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:
  • Anh ta thật là một con người bạc bẽo. (He is truly an ungrateful person.)
  • Cô ấy cảm thấy mối quan hệ này thật bạc bẽo. (She feels this relationship is so thankless.)
  • Đừng có bạc bẽo với những người đã giúp đỡ mình. (Don't be ungrateful to those who have helped you.)

Advanced Usage

• "bạc bẽo tình đời": A poetic phrase describing the feeling that life or human relationships are fickle, ungrateful, and lacking in warmth.

  • Sau bao thăng trầm, ông ấy cảm thán về sự bạc bẽo tình đời. (After many ups and downs, he lamented the thanklessness of life.)

• "bạc bẽo như vong ân bội nghĩa": An emphatic comparison, likening someone's ingratitude to betrayal and forgetting favors.

  • Hành động của hắn thật bạc bẽo như vong ân bội nghĩa. (His actions were as thankless as forgetting kindness and betraying righteousness.)

Variants and Related Words

• Bạc (adj): Has a broader meaning of "thin" (like metal) or "fickle/unfaithful" (in character). "Bạc bẽo" intensifies the sense of ingratitude.

  • Bạc tình: Fickle in love, unfaithful.
  • Bạc nghĩa: Ungrateful, lacking in righteousness.

• Bẽ bàng (adj): Feeling ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated, often due to disappointment. It can be related in contexts of emotional letdown.

Synonyms

• Vô ơn: Ungrateful (a direct and strong synonym).
• Phụ bạc: To betray, to be unfaithful (often used in romantic contexts, implying betrayal of trust or affection).
• Hờ hững: Indifferent, apathetic (lacking care or interest, which can lead to a perception of being thankless).

Idioms and Set Phrases

• Ăn cháo đá bát: Literally "to eat the porridge and kick the bowl". An idiom meaning to bite the hand that feeds you, to be profoundly ungrateful to a benefactor.

  • Giúp nó bao nhiêu mà giờ nó lại quay lưng, đúng là ăn cháo đá bát. (I helped him so much, and now he turns his back. It's truly biting the hand that feeds.)

• Qua cầu rút ván: Literally "to cross the bridge and pull up the planks". An idiom meaning to abandon or betray someone after achieving one's goal through their help.

  • Hắn ta là kẻ qua cầu rút ván, hết sức bạc bẽo. (He is someone who pulls up the planks after crossing the bridge, utterly ungrateful.)

adj

1. Ungrateful, thankless, unrewarding
   • con người bạc bẽo
     an ungrateful person
   • không có nghề nào bạc bẽo cả
     there is no thankless job