The astonishment you feel when something totally unexpected happens to you

Usage examples of surprise.

Therefore she was not surprised when one day Mr Holohan came to her and proposed that her daughter should be the accompanist at a series of four grand concerts which his Society was going to give in the Ancient Concert Rooms.

Before the Goths could recover from the first surprise, and claim the accomplishment of their doubtful hopes, the victor established his power in Ravenna, beyond the danger of repentance and revolt.

And even the private schools, traditionally viewed with suspicious dislike by state education officials, were hit by surprise inspections so seldom that the very act of an accreditation team, showing up unannounced at one of them, was tantamount to an accusation of educational hanky-panky.

This was so unusual--their wishes, their good, was so invariably the rule of motion or of rest in their walks--that the girls, suddenly checked, stood silent and affrighted in surprise.

By a quick and unexpected march, Montrose hastened to Innerlochy, and presented himself in order of battle before the surprised but not affrightened Covenanters.

When the Oliat came to the foot of the stairs, she surprised herself with the smoothness of her deep obeisance, for the first time expressing, in the movement of her body, the emotions she felt for the Allegiancy Empire, the first galactic civilization granting full rights to all species.

Through this long day of shocks and surprises, he had reached that stage of amazedness where the evidential value of sensory impressions is destroyed.

This he did, fearing lest they should be surprised and cut off by an ambuscade of Spaniards, that might chance to lie thereabouts in the neighbouring woods, which appeared so thick as to seem almost impenetrable.

That cunning which is the wisdom of the worldling, and which he possessed in a very surprising degree, enabled him to adopt a course of conduct, look, and remark, which amply satisfied the exactions of the scrupulous, and secured the unhesitating confidence of those who were of a more yielding nature.

The really surprising fact in this case of the Galapagos Archipelago, and in a lesser degree in some analogous instances, is that the new species formed in the separate islands have not quickly spread to the other islands.

Lord Palmerston took the country, if not the house, by surprise in announcing that he had chosen Lord John Russell as the representative of England at the conference about to ensue.

The divine sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the fundamental principle of the theology of Plato, encouraged the learned proselytes of the second and third centuries to admire and study the writings of the Athenian sage, who had thus marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the Christian revelation.

The Correspondent, much to our surprise, had by occasional interjections at the beginning of the discussion showed that he was not antipathetic to Mongolian immigration.

It is therefore not surprising that it should be inherited, at least to some extent, by plants having hypogean cotyledons, in which the hypocotyl is only slightly developed and never protrudes above the ground, and in which the arching is of course now quite useless.

In any case, when I saw your interest in my archive, I was surprised and moved, and now that I hear your more-than-remarkable story, I feel that somehow I am to be your assistance here in Istanbul.