unexpected
/ʌnɪkˈspɛktɪd/
unexpected adjective: not expected, anticipated or foreseen.
Adjective
unexpected (comparative more unexpected, superlative most unexpected)
- Not expected, anticipated or foreseen.
- She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- Certainly unexpected. The P[awn] is overprotected to the best taste of a Nimzowitsch devotee, and there seems to be no drastic weakness in White's camp to justify this intrusion.1936 February, Isaac Kashdan, “My Best Games of Chess”, in Chess Review
Noun
unexpected (plural unexpecteds)
- Someone or something unexpected.
unexpected meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
unexpected in Hindi
- unexpected, unanticipated, sudden
- अप्रत्याशित apratyāśit
unexpected in Tamil
- எதிர்பாராத
unexpected in Marathi
- अनपेक्षित
unexpected in Urdu
- اچانک, بلاتوقع, دفعتاً, ایک دم, ایکا ایکی, غیرمتوقع
More languagesFewer languages
- unexpected in Bengali
- অকল্পিত ôkôlpitô
- unexpected in Telugu
- ఊహించనిది, అనుకోనిది
- unexpected in Malayalam
- അപ്രതീക്ഷിതം apratīkṣitaṁ
- unexpected in Kannada
- ಎದುರುನೋಡದ, ಅನಿರೀಕ್ಷಿತ
- unexpected in Punjabi
- ਕੁਦਰਤੀ kudratī
- unexpected in Gujarati
- અણધારી, અણધાર્યા, અનપેક્ષિત
- unexpected in Odia
- ଅପ୍ରତ୍ଯ଼ାଶିତ
- unexpected in Nepali
- अप्रत्याशित
- unexpected in Arabic
- مُفَاجِئ mufājiʔ
- unexpected in Vietnamese
- bất ngờ
Examples of unexpected in a sentence
- But the latest Santa Fe development, while not spurring the Rock Island to any further acceleration, has drawn fire from a totally unexpected quarter.1940 May, “Overseas Railways: Acceleration Proceeds in U.S.A.”, in Railway Magazine, page 298:
- The windmill presented unexpected difficulties.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […]...
- Providing accommodation is a significant constraint, and an unexpected development from the restoration of services to Okehampton is demand from the Exeter student population to rent local properties.2024 August 21, 'Industry Insider', “The value of rail reopenings”, in RAIL, number 1016, page 68:
Antonyms of unexpected
Forms of unexpected
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more unexpected |
| superlative | most unexpected |
| Noun | |
| plural | unexpecteds |
Origin of unexpected
From un- + expected.
Words formed from unexpected
Questions about unexpected
- What does unexpected mean?
- Unexpected means not expected, anticipated or foreseen.
- What is unexpected in Hindi?
- Unexpected in Hindi is अप्रत्याशित (apratyāśit). See Unexpected meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use unexpected in a sentence?
- But the latest Santa Fe development, while not spurring the Rock Island to any further acceleration, has drawn fire from a totally unexpected quarter.
- What part of speech is unexpected?
- Unexpected can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce unexpected?
- Unexpected is pronounced /ʌnɪkˈspɛktɪd/ (US).
Words near unexpected in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: unexpected (page history and authors); अप्रत्याशित (Hindi) (page history and authors); unexpected (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); unexpected (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unexpected (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); অকল্পিত (Bengali) (page history and authors); unexpected (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unexpected (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਕੁਦਰਤੀ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); unexpected (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unexpected (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unexpected (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-unexpected.ogg.
Cite this entry: “unexpected.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unexpected. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.