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surprising

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Unexpected and causing wonder, amazement or shock.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

serpryzing

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IPA pronunciation (US)

sɚpˈɹaɪzɪŋ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Causing surprise or wonder or amazement

    “The report shows a surprising lack of hard factual data.”

noun

  1. A situation in which somebody is surprised.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

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More ways to use surprising

  • “The report shows a surprising lack of hard factual data.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

hardly surprisingsomewhat surprisingsurprising numberrather surprisingsurprising givensurprising resultsurprising amountsurprising degree

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • surpriseverbBase word

    Cause to be surprised.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • surprisedadjectiveDerived adjective

    Taken unawares or suddenly and feeling wonder or astonishment.

  • surprisinglyadverbDerived adverb

    In a surprising manner.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: causing surprise or wonder or amazement

amazing

Antonyms

Sense: causing surprise or wonder or amazement

unsurprising

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.