千奇百怪

qiānqí-bǎiguài

idiom #37,007

Meanings

1 all sorts of strange things
2 weird and wonderful in countless ways
3 every kind of oddity

Characters

strange; unusual

Examples

海底的生物千奇百怪。

Hǎidǐ de shēngwù qiānqíbǎiguài.

The creatures at the bottom of the sea come in every imaginable form.

这家店的小玩意儿千奇百怪。

Zhèjiā diàn de xiǎowányìr qiānqíbǎiguài.

The little gadgets in this shop are endlessly weird and wonderful.

网友的评论千奇百怪。

Wǎngyǒu de pínglùn qiānqíbǎiguài.

Netizens' comments come in every flavor of strange.

Tips

history

Attested in Ling Mengchu's Ming-dynasty vernacular story collection 《二刻拍案惊奇》 (vol. 11), describing a knotty murder case where '千奇百怪的，巧生出机会来了' — 'a thousand oddities and a hundred strangenesses came together to open a chance'. The numeric pattern 千X百Y is a classic intensifier.

memory

千 (thousand) and 百 (hundred) together = 'countless'. 奇 (strange) + 怪 (weird) = 'all kinds of strange'. The whole phrase: 'a thousand kinds of strange, a hundred kinds of weird'.

Stroke Order

千 qiān

奇 qí

百 bǎi

怪 guài