King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “somehow”

不知何故
bù zhī hé gù
somehow

The closest CC-CEDICT match for somehow is 不知何故 (bù zhī hé gù), defined as: somehow.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

不 bù
no, not, un-; negative prefix
radical 1 ⼀ · 4 strokes
知 zhī
to know, to perceive, to comprehend
radical 111 ⽮ · 8 strokes
何 hé
what, why, where, which, how
radical 9 ⼈ · 7 strokes
故 gù
reason, cause; happening, instance
radical 66 ⽁ · 9 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 不知何故.

WordPinyinMeaning
不是bù shìno; is not
不能bù néngcannot; must not
不会 (不會)bù huìimprobable; unlikely
不过 (不過)bù guòonly; merely
不同bù tóngdifferent; distinct
知道zhī dàoto know; to become aware of; also pr. [zhi1dao5]
知识 (知識)zhī shiknowledge; 门 (mén)
通知tōng zhīto notify; to inform
如何rú héhow; what way
故事gù shìold practice

See also: Japanese symbol for “somehow”.

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.