万不得已
wàn bù dé yǐ
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 萬不得已
Only when there is absolutely no other choice; as a last resort. Used to explain that you did, or would do, something unwillingly.
Hoàn toàn không còn cách nào khác nên đành phải làm. Dùng để giải thích một việc làm miễn cưỡng, ngoài ý muốn.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 061 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): etymology of “vạn bất đắc dĩ” = 萬不得已 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “vạn bất đắc dĩ” (van-bat-dac-di). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “万不得已” mean?
Only when there is absolutely no other choice; as a last resort. Used to explain that you did, or would do, something unwillingly. Literally: ten thousand times 'cannot be helped'
Is “万不得已” formal or informal?
万不得已 is generally neutral.