Word.ws English Dictionary

taking by surprise

taking by surprise is the present participle and gerund of take by surprise.

Meaning of take by surprise

Verb

take by surprise (third-person singular simple present takes by surprise, present participle taking by surprise, simple past took by surprise, past participle taken by surprise)

  1. To occur to someone when unexpected; to surprise.
    • Kazakhstan's shooting team was taken by surprise when a spoof national anthem from the film Borat was used at a medal ceremony in Kuwait.2012 March 23, Barry Neild, “Borat's version of Kazakh anthem played at Kuwait medal ceremony”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Questions about taking by surprise

What is taking by surprise the present participle and gerund of?
Taking by surprise is the present participle and gerund of take by surprise.

Words near taking by surprise in the dictionary

  1. taking away from
  2. taking back
  3. taking bread and salt
  4. taking breath
  5. taking by storm
  6. taking by surprise
  7. taking care
  8. taking care of
  9. taking care of business
  10. taking charge
  11. taking check

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taking by surprise (page history and authors); take by surprise (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “taking by surprise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/taking_by_surprise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.