不明觉厉

What does 不明觉厉 mean?

不明觉厉 shortens 虽然不明白，但觉得很厉害: I do not understand it at all, yet it seems seriously impressive. It began as a forum reflex, the response to a dense technical argument that readers followed for exactly zero sentences, and grew into a Swiss-army knife for the internet: a sincere compliment for expertise, a polite exit from an argument you cannot grasp, or a gentle joke at jargon deployed to intimidate.

Where does 不明觉厉 come from?

It rode the same 2013 fashion for invented four-character idioms as 喜大普奔. People's Daily's site asked on 2013-07-12 whether readers could decode self-made idioms such as 不明觉厉, 喜大普奔 and 十动然拒, and the People's Daily Overseas Edition featured the word in its year-end hot-words roundup on 2013-12-12. Skeptics predicted the whole genre would be a flash in the pan; a few entries, this one included, stuck around.

How to use 不明觉厉

• 看完那篇论文，不明觉厉，赶紧先点赞收藏。
  Kàn wán nà piān lùnwén, bù míng jué lì, gǎnjǐn xiān diǎn zàn shōucáng.
  I finished that paper understanding none of it but deeply impressed; straight to like and save.
• 他在群里发了一串公式，大家不明觉厉，没人敢接话。
  Tā zài qún lǐ fā le yí chuàn gōngshì, dàjiā bù míng jué lì, méi rén gǎn jiē huà.
  He dropped a string of formulas in the group; nobody understood, everybody was impressed, and the chat went quiet.