言外之意 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• unspoken implication; the actual meaning of what was said

Character by character

• 言yánwords, speech; to speak, to say
• 外wàiout, outside, external; foreign; in addition
• 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
• 意yìthought, idea, opinion; desire, wish; meaning, int

Idioms sharing a character

• 一言一动 yī yán yī dòng
• 一言一行 yī yán yī xíng
• 一言不合 yī yán bù hé
• 一言不发 yī yán bù fā
• 一言九鼎 yī yán jiǔ dǐng
• 一言千金 yī yán qiān jīn
• 一言为定 yī yán wéi dìng
• 一言为重 yī yán wéi zhòng
• 一言难尽 yī yán nán jìn
• 三言两句 sān yán liǎng jù

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.