Surprising

//səˈpɹaɪzɪŋ// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A situation in which somebody is surprised.

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

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of surprise form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Causing surprise.

    "A surprising number of people attended the rally."

Adjective
  1. 1
    causing surprise or wonder or amazement wordnet

Example

More examples

"It is surprising that your wife should object."

Etymology

From surprise + -ing.

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