百年不遇

Mandarin · pinyin bǎi nián bù yù

Meanings

  1. only met with once every hundred years (drought, flood etc)
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Characters in this entry

百
bǎi · one hundred; numerous, many
年
nián · year; new-years; person's age
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
遇
yù · meet, come across, encounter
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3–2–4–4 · bai3 nian2 bu4 yu4

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

baak3 nin4 bat1 jyu6

Pleco · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Word reading; meanings not aligned.

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

  1. (figurative) once-in-a-hundred-years (event); not seen in a hundred years

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack