並なみ々なみならぬ

Meanings

pre-noun adjectival

Pre-noun adjectival (rentaishi) used to emphasize that something is far beyond the ordinary level. Often paired with nouns like 努力 (effort), 才能 (talent), or 熱意 (enthusiasm).

彼かれは並なみ々なみならぬ努ど力りょくで難なん関かん試し験けんに合ごう格かくした。
He passed the difficult exam through extraordinary effort.
その選せん手しゅには並なみ々なみならぬ才さい能のうがある。
That athlete has uncommon talent.

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Kanji

並row, and, besides

Related words

並なみ大たい抵てい
並大抵 is also a pre-noun adjectival meaning 'ordinary' or 'average', but it is more often used in negative constructions (e.g., 並大抵ではない) to mean 'not ordinary', while 並々ならぬ directly emphasizes extraordinariness.

Built from

並なみ々なみ+ならぬ

Written forms

並なみ々なみならぬ
Standard kanji spelling using the common 々 repetition mark.
並なみ並なみならぬ
Variant spelling without the repetition mark; less common but still encountered.
並なみ並なみならぬ
Variant spelling with okurigana; rarely used.

Etymology

Derived from the noun 並み (nami, 'average' or 'ordinary') reduplicated for emphasis, combined with the classical negative form ならぬ (naranu, 'is not') of なり (nari). Literally 'not being ordinary-ordinary', i.e., far from ordinary.