一問三不知

Chinese

one; single; a
one; single; a; (before verbs) as soon as, once; (before a noun) entire (family, etc.)
 
 to ask three
to not know; to have no idea of; to be ignorant of
to not know; to have no idea of; to be ignorant of; to wonder if
 
trad. (一問三不知) 一 問 三 不知
simp. (一问三不知) 一 问 三 不知
Literally: “to reply ‘don't know’ whatever the question”.

Etymology

From Zuo Zhuan:

君子之謀也，始衷終皆舉之而後入焉。今我是三不知而入之，不亦難乎？ [Traditional Chinese poetry, trad.]
君子之谋也，始衷终皆举之而后入焉。今我是三不知而入之，不亦难乎？ [Traditional Chinese poetry, simp.]
From: Commentary of Zuo, c. 4th century BCE
Jūnzǐ zhī móu yě, shǐ zhōng zhōng jiē jǔ zhī ér hòu rù yān. Jīn wǒ shì sān bùzhī ér rù zhī, bù yì nán hū? [Pinyin]
A superior man, in forming his plans, considers everything ― the beginning, the middle and the end ― and then he enters on his course. But now I took mine, without knowing any one of these three; is it not hard?

Pronunciation

Idiom

一問三不知

  1. to answer “no idea” to every question; to have absolutely no idea of what is going on, or pretend to be unaware; completely ignorant
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.