unexpected
nounEtymology From un- + expected.
1
Rare Someone or something unexpected.
unexpected
adjUS /ʌnɪkˈspɛktɪd/
Etymology From un- + expected.
1
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 as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.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:
3 more examples
- 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 […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
- 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:
- Synonyms
- surprising
- Antonyms
- expected
- Derived terms
- expect the unexpected, sudden unexpected death syndrome, unexpected hanging paradox, unexpectedly, unexpectedness, unexpected red theory
- Related terms
- unplanned, incidental, contingent, bolt from the blue, out of the blue