身不由己 — Chinese idiom
身不由己
shēn bù yóu jǐ
Meaning
- (of one's circumstances) beyond one's control; unable to do anything about it; (of one's actions) not subject to conscious control (i.e. done in spite of oneself)
Character by character
- 身shēnbody, torso; person; pregnancy
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 由yóucause, reason; from
- 己jǐself, oneself; personal, private; 6th heavenly ste
Idioms sharing a character
- 一身是胆 yī shēn shì dǎn
- 以身作则 yǐ shēn zuò zé
- 以身报国 yǐ shēn bào guó
- 以身许国 yǐ shēn xǔ guó
- 以身试法 yǐ shēn shì fǎ
- 全身而退 quán shēn ér tuì
- 分身乏术 fēn shēn fá shù
- 大显身手 dà xiǎn shēn shǒu
- 奋不顾身 fèn bù gù shēn
- 孤身只影 gū shēn zhī yǐng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.