岂但 qǐdàn not only Origin Definitions Defs Strokes Stroke Words Sentences Sents 岂 豈 qǐ adverb how Used in formal or literary writing to form a rhetorical question, asking "how" or "how can it be that..."但 dàn adverbverb only Used to limit the scope of an action or state, meaning "only", "merely", or "just".