surprising

Pluralsurprisings

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing a feeling of surprise because it is unexpected or hard to believe.

   The team's surprising victory stunned fans who had predicted an easy loss.

   She made a surprising decision to leave her job and travel the world.

   Similarunexpected, astonishing, amazing, startling, remarkable

   Oppositepredictable, expected, unsurprising

   Note

   Its everyday work happens in two set frames. A surprising number of people flags a quantity larger than anyone expected. The negated hardly surprising works the other way and says that something was predictable. David Ornstein's 2011 BBC Sport report uses it this way about a weakened Stoke side, with a to-infinitive following: it was hardly surprising to see nine changes.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of surprise.

   The committee is surprising the retiring director with a special ceremony.

   Surprising guests with an unexpected guest of honor takes careful planning.

   Note

   The verb form shares its spelling with both the adjective and the noun. As a verb it takes an object and keeps the full range of surprise, from delighting someone to catching an enemy off guard: surprising the director, surprising the guards at dawn. To tell it from the "unexpected" adjective, check two things. Only the adjective accepts very or more (a more surprising result). The verb needs someone to surprise.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A situation or occasion in which someone is surprised by something.

   But the comments of most of these novelists are the record of their continual surprisings by the varieties of moral and aesthetic truths.

   1983, David Dowling, Novelists on Novelists

   Note

   Here the -ing form has become a countable noun, so it can take a plural. David Dowling's Novelists on Novelists (1983) speaks of novelists' continual surprisings by moral and aesthetic truths, each one a separate moment of being caught off guard. The cause follows by. Unlike the verbal gerund, which takes an object, this noun names what the surprised person goes through.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3