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绝不 (jué bù) — absolutely not; not in the least; in no way

Definition

绝不 is a strong, emphatic 'absolutely not' used in writing and formal speech. Stronger than 不 or 不会 — pairs with verbs like 放弃, 同意 to stress total refusal.

adverb
absolutely notnot in the leastin no way

Examples

  • 绝不。
    Wǒ jué bù fàng qì.
    I absolutely will not give up.
  • 绝不。
    Tā jué bù huì tóng yì zhè jiàn shì.
    He absolutely will not agree to this.
  • 绝不。
    Zhè jué bù shì zhēn de.
    This absolutely is not true.

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.

绝juéabsolutely
不bùnot

绝 means absolutely and 不 means not, so the pair intensifies negation to absolutely not.

Characters in this word

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 絕; 绝 is its simplified writing.

In the traditional form 絕, 刀 (knife) and 幺 (silk) show a knife cutting silk threads. The simplified 绝 is a later shorthand, so its parts are not the original picture.

Open 绝 →

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 →
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