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不得了 (bù dé liǎo) — disastrous, terrible, awful (used to describe a serious situation); extremely, incredibly (used as a complement after 得 to intensify an adjective or verb)

Definition

不得了 has two uses: as a complement after 得 to mean 'extremely, incredibly' (stronger than 极为), and as an adjective meaning 'disastrous, awful' for serious situations. It is more about shock/severity than personal fear, unlike 可怕.

adjective
disastrousterribleawful (used to describe a serious situation)extremelyincredibly (used as a complement after 得 to intensify an adjective or verb)

Examples

  • 不得了，！
    bù dé liǎo Le, chē zi zhuàng huài le!
    Oh no, the car is crashed!
  • ，不得了。
    Tīng dào zhè ge xiāo xi, tā kāi xīn dé bù dé liǎo.
    Hearing this news, he was incredibly happy.
  • 不得了，。
    Zhè jiān wū zi zāng dé bù dé liǎo, xū yào hǎo hǎo dǎ sǎo.
    This room is extremely dirty and needs a good cleaning.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

不bùnot
得了can finish
得décan了liǎofinish
补充Verb + complement

不 negates 得了 (can finish), so 'cannot finish' intensifies to 'terrible' or 'extremely'.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The picture in 不 originally showed a flower’s calyx; the “no” sense came later from a related character, not from this picture.

Open 不 →

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

The old form 㝵 showed a hand picking up a cowry, meaning to obtain; later changes turned that picture into 得.

Open 得 →

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

了 was once drawn to show a baby with no arms; some old comments say it showed crossed or tangled legs.

Open 了 →

Grammar

Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 5HSK 2.0 Level 5Good & Bad

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