不 bù
- Strokes
- 4
- Radical
- 一 — one
- How it's built
- Ideograph — the meaning is built from its parts
不翼而飞
búyì'érfēi
to disappear without trace; to vanish mysteriously
Characters in this word
翼 yì
- Strokes
- 17
- Radical
- 羽 — feather, plume
- Made of
- 羽 feather, plume 異 different, strange, unusual
- How it's built
- Phono-semantic — one part hints at the meaning, another at the sound
而 ér
- Strokes
- 6
- Radical
- 而 — and, and then, and yet
飞 fēi
- Strokes
- 3
- Radical
- 飞 — to fly, to dart
- How it's built
- Pictograph — a drawing of the thing
Example phrases
- 仓库监控失灵后，三箱贵重零件竟然不翼而飞。 Cāngkù jiānkòng shīlíng hòu, sān xiāng guìzhòng língjiàn jìngrán búyì'érfēi. After the warehouse surveillance failed, three boxes of valuable parts mysteriously disappeared.
- 放在桌上的钱包不翼而飞了，大家都找不到。 Fàng zài zhuō shang de qiánbāo búyì'érfēi le, dàjiā dōu zhǎo bú dào. The wallet left on the table vanished without trace, and nobody could find it.
- 我刚买的新伞，转身就不翼而飞了。 Wǒ gāng mǎi de xīn sǎn, zhuǎnshēn jiù búyì'érfēi le. I turned around and the new umbrella I had just bought was gone.