Dictionary › 只好

只好

zhǐ hǎo

Old HSK 4 HSK 3.0 level 4 2-character word

只好 (zhǐ hǎo) means "to have no other option but to ...; to have to; to be forced to". It is an HSK 3.0 level 4 word, and was HSK 4 in the old six-level list.

What 只好 means

1. to have no other option but to ...; to have to; to be forced to

The characters in 只好

• 只zhǐonly; merely; just
• 好hǎogood; appropriate; proper; all right!

Example sentences

• 只好坐下来等待。
  There was no choice but to sit and wait.
• 这支铅笔比那只好。
  This pencil is better than that one.

Where 只好 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Modal & certainty adverbs (HSK 4), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 4 word, with the rest of its level.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read zhǐ hǎo correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.