Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Surprisingly |
SurprisinglyAdverb1. In a surprising manner; "he was surprisingly friendly". 2. In an amazing manner; to everyone's surprise; "amazingly, he finished medical school in three years". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "surprisingly" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1719. (references) |
Synonyms: SurprisinglySynonyms: amazingly (adv), astonishingly (adv). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Greatness | Particularly, remarkably, singularly, curiously, uncommonly, unusually, peculiarly, notably, signally, strikingly, pointedly, mainly, chiefly; famously, egregiously, prominently, glaringly, emphatically, gr/kat exochin/, strangely, wonderfully, amazingly, surprisingly, astonishingly, incredibly, marvelously, awfully, stupendously. |
Inexpectation | Adverb: abruptly, unexpectedly, surprisingly; plump, pop, a l'improviste, unawares; without notice, without warning, without a "by your leave"; like a thief in the night, like a thunderbolt; in an unguarded moment; suddenly; (instantaneously). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Surprisingly |
| English words defined with "surprisingly": abrupt, actually, astonishing, astounding ♦ conformist ♦ in reality ♦ recovery ♦ staggering, stupefying. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "surprisingly": fgrep, finger trouble ♦ Hitachi 6309 ♦ initgame ♦ Journey ♦ recompile the world, Ropes. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | However, surprisingly, a new contender has emerged (Seinfeld; writing credit: Andreas Lenze; Bea Schmidt) A surprisingly good dancer (Will & Grace; writing credit: Evan Weinstein) Their architecture is surprisingly advanced (Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death; writing credit: J.F. Lawton) You're surprisingly adept at keeping your curiosity in check (Alias; writing credit: Robert Soulé; Henri de Turenne) Surprisingly, not so good (That '70s Show; writing credit: Stacia Raymond) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Arizona has a surprisingly diverse terrain. Hikes through wilderness areas often leads to breathtaking views. Credit: Unknown. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Church spike" by C.H. So Commentary: "I don't usually look up when I walk pass the church. Suddenly I looked up today and the spike looks surprisingly nice!!!." | "Pigeons on stpes" by Philip Jackson Commentary: "Pigeons, not too surprisingly on steps. They always look so clueless." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Although highly toxic, epibatidine is a potent analgesic and, surprisingly, resembles the chemical nicotine found in cigarettes. (references) | |
Surprisingly, instead of showing that EC/IC bypass prevented future strokes, the study showed that the procedure actually contributed to more and earlier recurrent strokes. (references) | ||
On a statistical basis, the numbers of individuals showing signs of both diseases is surprisingly high. Because of this crossover of anatomical and physical signs, some clinicians have suggested that AD and PD are the same disease occurring over a broad spectrum. (references) | ||
Business | Variations in the economy have surprisingly little effect on travel decisions. (references) | |
The export sector has also proven surprisingly strong thanks to the huge international success of the Swedish telecom industry. (references) | ||
Cefarm, which was the only wholesaler chain in Poland during the Communist era, has surprisingly survived the last decade, although it faces a tough environment in the coming years. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | China | Some Web sites, such as the "Marxist Liberal Left Wing Ideology Web site" and the People's Daily "Strong Country Forum," regularly post surprisingly frank critiques of society, the Party, and the Government. (references) |
Economic History | Sweden | Swedish exports have also proven to be surprisingly robust. (references) |
Seychelles | Wavel Ramkalawan, made a surprisingly strong showing and collected 46% of the total votes. (references) | |
Trade | Sri Lanka | Given the high effective level of taxation on many imported goods, smuggling is, not surprisingly, a serious problem for products such as cigarettes. (references) |
Travel | Russia | Summers, while brief, can be surprisingly hot, and air conditioning is still rare outside big-city hotels. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dennis Miller | The fact is, kids are not only surprisingly durable, they actually need to burn a finger on the stove or eat a bad apple now and then, so they can learn not to do it again. |
Dominick Dunne | Well, I'm not for the death penalty, actually, you know surprisingly enough, being as much of a victim's advocate as I am. But if it happened in this case, believe me, I would not be out with a candle outside the prison on the night it happened. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Surprisingly" is generally used as an adverb (general) -- approximately 99.50% of the time. "Surprisingly" is used about 2,596 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adverb (general) | 99.5% | 2,583 | 3,533 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.5% | 13 | 97,576 |
| Total | 100.00% | 2,596 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "surprisingly": surprisingly-wide. | |
Containing "surprisingly": of-surprisingly-reminiscence. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
cook cut effort little make meal short simple surprisingly | 4 |
surprisingly | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "surprisingly"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | çuditërisht (peculiarly, uncommonly). (various references) | |
Arabic | بانذهال, باندهاش, بشكل مفاجئ. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | учудващо, изненадващо. (various references) | |
Chinese | 惊人地 (Wondrously), 令人驚異 . (various references) | |
Czech | překvapivì, neoèekávanì (all of a sudden, unawares). (various references) | |
French | avec surprise, étonnement (surprise). (various references) | |
German | überraschende (astonishingly). (various references) | |
Greek | εκπληκτικώσ (stunningly), εκπλητικά. (various references) | |
Hebrew | להפליא (amaze, astound, surprise), בהפתעה. (various references) | |
Hungarian | meglepõen, meglepően (astonishingly, astoundingly, strikingly, wondrous, wondrously). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 意外と (unexpectedly). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | いがいと (unexpectedly). (various references) | |
Korean | 놀랄 정도로. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | urprisinglysay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | surpreendentemente (wondrous), espantosamente (astoundingly, wondrous). (various references) | |
Russian | удивительно (astonishingly, startlingly, strangely, uncommonly). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | začudo, neočekivano (accidentally, suddenly, unexpectedly). (various references) | |
Spanish | sorprendentemente, de modo sorprendente, asombrosamente. (various references) | |
Swedish | förvånande (amazing, astonishing, astounding, surprising). (various references) | |
Turkish | hayret uyandıracak şekilde, şaşırtıcı biçimde. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | несподівано (abruptly, bang, casually, overnight, plump, unawares, unexpectedly), дивовижно (amazingly, extraordinarily, remarkably, strangely, uncommon, what a wonder, wonder). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "surprisingly": unsurprisingly. (additional references) | |
| |
"Surprisingly" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: suprisingly. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "surprisingly" (pronounced serprī"zinglē or suprī"zinglē) |
| 10 | s er p r ī" z i ng l ē | unsurprisingly. |
| 5 | -z i ng l ē | accusingly, agonizingly, amazingly, amusingly, confusingly, pleasingly, tantalizingly. |
| 4 | -i ng l ē | accordingly, admiringly, alarmingly, appallingly, appealingly, approvingly, astonishingly, astoundingly, breathtakingly, charmingly, chillingly, compellingly, convincingly, correspondingly, demandingly, depressingly, devastatingly, disappointingly, disarmingly, jokingly, kiddingly, knowingly, laughingly, disparagingly, distressingly, disturbingly, embarrassingly, exceedingly, excruciatingly, fittingly, fleetingly, frighteningly, frowningly, frustratingly, glowingly, grudgingly, haltingly, hauntingly, increasingly, interestingly, intriguingly, longingly, lovingly, maddeningly, menacingly, misleadingly, movingly, numbingly, obligingly, overwhelmingly, painstakingly, reassuringly, refreshingly, resoundingly, screamingly, seemingly, shockingly, smilingly, soothingly, sparingly, sportingly, startlingly, strikingly, stunningly, tellingly, threateningly, unfailingly, unhesitatingly, unknowingly, unthinkingly, unwillingly, unwittingly, warningly, willingly, wittingly. |
| 3 | -ng l ē | kingly, Langley, gangly, strongly, wrongly. |
| 8 | -p r ī" z i ng l ē | unsurprisingly. |
| 5 | -z i ng l ē | accusingly, agonizingly, amazingly, amusingly, confusingly, pleasingly, tantalizingly. |
| 4 | -i ng l ē | accordingly, admiringly, alarmingly, appallingly, appealingly, approvingly, astonishingly, astoundingly, breathtakingly, charmingly, chillingly, compellingly, convincingly, correspondingly, demandingly, depressingly, devastatingly, disappointingly, disarmingly, jokingly, kiddingly, knowingly, laughingly, disparagingly, distressingly, disturbingly, embarrassingly, exceedingly, excruciatingly, fittingly, fleetingly, frighteningly, frowningly, frustratingly, glowingly, grudgingly, haltingly, hauntingly, increasingly, interestingly, intriguingly, longingly, lovingly, maddeningly, menacingly, misleadingly, movingly, numbingly, obligingly, overwhelmingly, painstakingly, reassuringly, refreshingly, resoundingly, screamingly, seemingly, shockingly, smilingly, soothingly, sparingly, sportingly, startlingly, strikingly, stunningly, tellingly, threateningly, unfailingly, unhesitatingly, unknowingly, unthinkingly, unwillingly, unwittingly, warningly, willingly, wittingly. |
| 3 | -ng l ē | kingly, Langley, gangly, strongly, wrongly. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "g-i-i-l-n-p-r-r-s-s-u-y" | |
-2 letters: surprising. | |
-3 letters: purringly, slurrying, springily, suspiring, uprisings. | |
-4 letters: prissily, prissing, slurping, slurring, spilings, spurring, uprising. | |
-5 letters: issuing, lisping, lungyis, pilings, pissing, prising, pulings, pulsing, purling, purlins, purring, pursily, pursing, risings, rulings, sliping, spiling, spiring, splurgy, springs, springy, yirring. | |
| Words containing the letters "g-i-i-l-n-p-r-r-s-s-u-y" | |
+2 letters: unsurprisingly. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Spoken 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
