身不由己 Save Sign in to save words On the HSK 7-9 vocabulary list, at CEFR level C2. shēnbùyóujǐ ㄕㄣ ㄅㄨˋ ㄧㄡˊ ㄐㄧˇ (of one's circumstances) beyond one's control unable to do anything about it (of one's actions) not subject to conscious control (i.e. done in spite of oneself) idiom Character by character 身(shēn)body 不(bù)no 由(yóu)follow 己(jǐ)self A Chinese word or character, or English Search Sources CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0 pinyinjs, Apache-2.0 国际中文教育中文水平等级标准, 中华人民共和国教育部, MIT