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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

莫名其妙

/mu̯ɔ⁵¹ miŋ³⁵ t͡ɕʰi³⁵ mi̯ɑʊ̯⁵¹/
puzzling; baffling; inexplicable
  • HSK 10
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The phrase describes something so mysterious that it defies being given a name or understood.
The phrase describes something so mysterious that it defies being given a name or understood.

Origin

The phrase 莫名其妙 is formed by combining the characters 莫 (none; nothing; not anything), 名 (name), 其 (his; her; its; their), and 妙 (subtle; mysterious; profound). The character 名 consists of the components 口 (mouth) and 夕 (night; evening; dusk).

The character 妙 is composed of the semantic component 女 (woman; female) and the phonetic component 少 (few; little in number; less; not many). Together, these characters form a phrase used to describe things that are inexplicable or to rebuke irrational behavior.

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • characterChinese莫 “none; nothing; not anything”
  • characterChinese名 “name”
    • ideaChinese夕 “night; evening; dusk”
    • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • characterChinese其 “his; her; its; their”
  • characterChinese妙 “subtle; mysterious; profound”
    • meaningChinese女 “woman; (only of humans in Standard Chinese) female”
    • soundChinese少 “few; little in number; less; not many”
Wiktionary etymology text

No etymology text yet. The graph shows what is known from the sources.

Meanings

phrase
  1. puzzling; baffling; inexplicable

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 事情或現象令人難以理解，無法以言語形容其奧妙。 例：大家對宇宙的某一些現象，仍然莫名其妙。
  2. 斥責人言行荒謬，不講道理。 例：他說話總是出爾反爾，真是莫名其妙！

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

Sources

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0