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

HSK 5

海底的生物千奇百怪。

Hǎidǐ de shēngwù qiānqí-bǎiguài.

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

HSK 6

网友的评论千奇百怪。

Wǎngyǒu de pínglùn qiānqí-bǎiguài.

Netizens' comments come in every flavor of strange.

HSK 7-9

这家店的小玩意儿千奇百怪。

Zhè jiā diàn de xiǎowányìr qiānqí-bǎiguài.

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

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 '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