noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A surprise attack or ambush; a sudden or unexpected assault. countable, obsolete, uncountable

   "Their chiefe attempts are by Stratagems, trecheries, or surprisals."

2. 2
   the act of surprising someone wordnet
3. 3
   A sudden coming-upon someone or something unexpectedly or unawares. countable, obsolete, uncountable

   "How to secure the lady from surprisal"

4. 4
   A surprising event or occurrence. countable, obsolete, uncountable
5. 5
   The feeling caused by being surprised; surprise, shock, amazement. countable, obsolete, uncountable

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6. 6
   An information measure as equal in bits (binary digits) to the base-2 log of 1 over the probability, with the result that the number of choices equals 2ⁿ where n is the number of bits. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms

blockbusterblowbombbombshellcatchearthshaker

Example

More examples

"Their chiefe attempts are by Stratagems, trecheries, or surprisals."

Etymology

From surprise + -al. (information measure): Defined by Myron Tribus in the 1961 book Thermostatics and Thermodynamics.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.