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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
unawares
adverb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
catch
▪ Perhaps Chapel had proven harder to catch unawares.
▪ Because of my inability to see clearly, I was caught unawares by the hug and the kiss he planted on me.
▪ However, everyone comes unstuck once in a while, especially when caught unawares.
▪ And when it does, as it always does, we are caught unawares and unprepared.
▪ But the team had been caught unawares, their information unreliable.
▪ Everyone, even newspaper editors, were caught unawares by the Princess Diana phenomenon.
▪ Perhaps he had been caught unawares by a flashgun?
▪ Understandable, maybe, if she had been caught unawares at a private dinner with friends or family.
take
▪ Chap might have just set the bomb and been taken unawares when it went off a bit early.
▪ He clenched himself against them, tightening himself, determined not to be taken unawares.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
catch sb by surprise, catch sb off guard, catch sb napping/unawares
▪ My pregnancy caught us by surprise, but we're happy about it.
▪ The public's reaction obviously caught the governor off guard.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Tommy and Don stood in the corner, chatting unawares.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And when it does, as it always does, we are caught unawares and unprepared.
▪ But this morning she caught me unawares before I'd had a single cup of coffee.
▪ Perhaps Chapel had proven harder to catch unawares.
▪ The thought caught him unawares, and despair filled him.
▪ This lad behaved every way as a man would who had happened unawares on murder.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Unawares

Unawares \Un`a*wares"\, adv. Without design or preparation; suddenly; without premeditation, unexpectedly. ``Mercies lighting unawares.''
--J. H. Newman.

Lest unawares we lose This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill.
--Milton.

At unaware, or At unawares, unexpectedly; by surprise.

He breaks at unawares upon our walks.
--Dryden.

So we met In this old sleepy town an at unaware.
--R. Browning.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
unawares

1530s, "without being aware," from un- (1) "not" + aware + adverbial genitive -s. Meaning "without being noticed" is recorded from 1660s. Form unaware is recorded from 1590s.

Wiktionary
unawares

adv. 1 unexpectedly or by surprise 2 inadvertently 3 without plan or forethought

WordNet
unawares
  1. adv. without forethought or plan; inadvertently; "came upon the diamond unawares"

  2. suddenly and unexpectedly; "rain caught them unawares"; "sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them unawares"- A.Lincoln

  3. at a disadvantage; "I was caught short" [syn: short]

Usage examples of "unawares".

The very habit of our thoughts may be persuaded one way unawares by their antenatal history.

Roman men were pouring thick from the wood out of all array, followed by a close throng of the kindreds: for on this side the Romans were outnumbered and had stumbled unawares into the ambush of the Markmen, who had fallen on them straightway and disarrayed them from the first.

Yet unawares, I must profess, They do deceive Themselves, and those who questionless Their tale believe.

Hiraga-san, on his orders--in fact he was returning from the Inn when you attacked him near the castle gates, he had personally ordered and witnessed the executions, leaving men there in ambush in case all you shishi returned unawares.

Lord Yoshi and Lord Ogama and their forces fell on the shishi headquarters, caught them unawares, destroyed it and them.

I was caught unawares when Amphion, previously a dead star, abruptly went nova and came to life.

Blifil would not be able to keep them, he thought proper now to make this confession, which the promises of forgiveness, joined to the threats, the voice, the looks of Allworthy, and the discoveries he had made before, extorted from him, who was besides taken unawares, and had no time to consider of evasions.

After that Psyches had gone a little way, she fortuned unawares to come to a city where the husband of one of her Sisters did dwell.

The leg that he seemed to have injured unawares had stiffened while he slept, and gave him increasing trouble: he feared reinjuring it with a careless step.

Chief Inspector Teal, the hero of the case, caught unawares in the very act of inserting some fresh chewing gum in his mouth as he stepped out on to the pavement of Newgate Street, was featured looking almost libellously like an infuriated codfish afflicted with some strange uvular growth.

I shouldn't mind being a detective to lie in wait for a gang of coiners, now, and spring upon them unawares, and secure them - single-handed, you know, or with only my faithful bloodhound.

But if I had married a woman of tact, who would have ruled me unawares to myself, I should have taken care of my fortune and have had children, instead of being lonely and penniless in my old age.

If he support my charging of his flank at unawares, with you in front to cope him, and he with so small an advantage upon us in strength of men: if he stand that, why then, good-night!

He'd been tucked back into some little bayou under overhanging mangrove, had let us move by in the narrow channel, all lights and music, and then had come out and come up on us in a fast curve from astern, up to the starboard side, amidships, making the roaring sound I had heard, had cut his engine, jumped and grabbed the rail, come in through the doorway onto the side deck to take Chook unawares in the galley, gun in his hand.

When nearly one hundred years had run since the Dagor Aglareb, Morgoth endeavoured to take Fingolfin at unawares (for he knew of the vigilance of Maedhros).