King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “terrific”

了不得
liǎo bu de
terrific; terrible; (after 得 (de)) very

The closest CC-CEDICT match for terrific is 了不得 (liǎo bu de), defined as: terrific; terrible; (after 得 (de)) very.

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

了 liǎo
clear; to finish; particle of completed action
radical 6 ⼅ · 2 strokes
不 bu
no, not, un-; negative prefix
radical 1 ⼀ · 4 strokes
得 de
to obtain, to get, to acquire; suitable, proper; ready
radical 60 ⼻ · 11 strokes

Other Chinese words for “terrific”

WordPinyinMeaning
了不起liǎo bu qǐamazing; terrific
雷人léi rén(Internet slang) shocking; appalling

Related words

Other words that share a character with 了不得.

WordPinyinMeaning
为了 (為了)wèi lefor; for the purpose of; in order to
了解liǎo jiěto understand; to know about; to learn about; to find out
除了chú leapart from; besides; in addition to (used to exclude, as in 除了他,誰也沒來|除了他,谁也没来[chu2 le5 ta1 , shei2 ye3 mei2 lai2] "apart from him, nobody ca
不了bù leno thanks (used to politely but informally decline)
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
觉得 (覺得)jué deto think that ...; to feel that ...; to feel (uncomfortable etc)

See also: Japanese symbol for “terrific”.

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.

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