不痛不痒 — Chinese idiom
不痛不痒
bù tòng bù yǎng
Traditional: 不痛不癢
Meaning
- lit. doesn't hurt, doesn't tickle ; sth is wrong, but not quite sure what
- fig. not getting to any matter of substance
- scratching the surface
- superficial
- perfunctory
Character by character
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 痛tòngache, pain; bitterness, sorrow; deeply, thoroughly
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 痒yǎngto itch; to tickle
Idioms sharing a character
- 一丁不识 yī dīng bù shí
- 一尘不染 yī chén bù rǎn
- 一字不差 yī zì bù chà
- 一字不提 yī zì bù tí
- 一成不变 yī chéng bù biàn
- 一文不值 yī wén bù zhí
- 一毛不拔 yī máo bù bá
- 一病不起 yī bìng bù qǐ
- 一窍不通 yī qiào bù tōng
- 一笔不苟 yī bǐ bù gǒu
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.