语无伦次

語無倫次
yǔwúlúncì
idiom

Meanings

  1. 1 incoherent speech
  2. 2 to talk without rhyme or reason
  3. 3 rambling and disorganized

Examples

Tā jǐnzhāng de yǔ wú lún cì.
He was so nervous that he started rambling incoherently.
Hē duō le yǐhòu, tā shuōhuà kāishǐ yǔ wú lún cì.
After drinking too much, his speech became incoherent.
Zhè piān wénzhāng yǔ wú lún cì, ràng rén kàn bu dǒng.
This article is so disjointed that it's impossible to follow.

Tips

history
Traced to a Song commentary on poetry in 《》, where ancient regulated verse was said to 'seem 伦次 but meaning still strings together like beads' — originally a compliment about hidden coherence, later flipped to mean plainly disordered.
memory
伦次 means 'sequence / proper order'. Literally 'words have no sequence' — picture someone whose sentences tumble out of order.

Stroke Order

lún