Unexpected

How to spell unexpected

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce unexpected

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unexpected mean?

1. adjectiveNot anticipated or foreseen; happening without warning.

Unexpected in a sentence

• The unexpected bill arrived just before payday and threw off the budget.

• An unexpected delay on the motorway made the whole team late for the meeting.

Where does unexpected come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the verb 'expect', which English took in the sixteenth century from the Latin exspectare, meaning 'to look out for' or 'to await'. That Latin verb joins the prefix ex- ('out') with spectare ('to look'), the same 'look' root that gives us 'spectacle', 'inspect', and 'spectator'. To it English added two of its most productive affixes: the native prefix un-, meaning 'not', and the past-participle ending -ed, which here works as an adjective. The result, recorded from the early seventeenth century, literally describes something 'not looked out for', that is, something nobody was watching for in advance. The spelling trap is purely in the middle: the strong -spect- chunk hides the silent first 'c' people sometimes drop, while the calm un- and -ed bookends are entirely regular.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• expect (from Latin exspectare: to look out for)
• -ed (adjective suffix)