công cán

Ông ấy đi công cán ở Đà Nẵng một tuần.

Definition

1. Noun:
   • Official duty or mission: Refers to a task or assignment carried out for official or public purposes, often involving travel away from one's usual workplace.
   • Result of labor (archaic/negative connotation): An older, less common meaning referring to the product or outcome of hard work, often used in negative contexts to imply negligible results.

Usage Examples

• Noun (Official duty):
  • Ông ấy đi công cán ở Đà Nẵng một tuần. (He is on an official duty in Da Nang for a week.)
  • Giấy tờ này chứng minh tôi đang thực hiện công cán. (This document proves I am on an official mission.)
• Noun (Archaic meaning):
  • Làm cả tháng mà chẳng thấy công cán gì. (Worked for a whole month but saw no tangible result.)

Advanced Usage

• The term is most frequently used in government, administrative, or corporate contexts to describe work-related travel or temporary assignments.
• The archaic meaning is now rare and typically found in literary or older texts, often to express futility.

Variants and Related Words

• Đi công cán (verb phrase): to go on an official mission.
  • Cán bộ thường xuyên phải đi công cán. (Officials often have to go on official missions.)

Synonyms

• Official business: Work conducted for an organization or government.
• Mission: A specific task or duty assigned to someone.
• Assignment: A task or piece of work allocated to someone.

Related Idioms

• Công cán gì?: A rhetorical question meaning "What's the point?" or "What's the use?", stemming from the archaic meaning.
  • Học mà không hành thì công cán gì? (What's the use of learning without practice?)