不明觉厉bù míng jué lì

No idea, but impressive

bù míng jué lì.不明觉厉。No idea, but wow.

不明觉厉 is short for 虽然不明白，但是觉得很厉害: “I don’t understand it, but it sounds impressive.” You say it when someone talks over your head.

Took off: 2013
Started in: Online forums
Today: A classic

What it means

不明 comes from 不明白, “do not understand”, and 觉厉 from 觉得很厉害, “feel that it is impressive”. The four characters look like a 成语, a classical four-character idiom, but they are only a cut-down sentence.

It can be real praise for an expert. It can also be a polite way to say that an explanation lost you.

How people use it

It is a little dated, but most people still know it. Use it in chat when a friend explains code, physics or a recipe with twenty steps. Said about someone’s work to their face, it can sound like teasing.

里昂

我用三行代码做了一个小游戏
wǒ yòng sān háng dài mǎ zuò le yí gè xiǎo yóu xì
I made a little game with three lines of code.
啥？三行就够了？
shá? sān háng jiù gòu le?
What? Three lines is enough?
对，用了一个新的库
duì, yòng le yí gè xīn de kù
Yep. I used a new library.
不明觉厉
bù míng jué lì
No idea how, but that’s impressive.

More examples

你写的这些代码我一句也没看懂，不明觉厉。
nǐ xiě de zhè xiē dài mǎ wǒ yí jù yě méi kàn dǒng, bù míng jué lì.
I didn’t understand a line of that code. Sounds impressive, though.
他在讲量子物理，大家都不明觉厉。
tā zài jiǎng liàng zǐ wù lǐ, dà jiā dōu bù míng jué lì.
He was talking about quantum physics. Nobody followed, but we were all impressed.

Where it came from

No source we found names the first post. By July 2013, Chinese newspapers were writing about 不明觉厉 and other “new idioms” made the same way, such as 十动然拒, “very moved, then said no”.

In October 2013, China Daily’s language site put it first on a list of popular online words of the year.