Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Not expected or hoped for.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Unhoped; unexpected.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Not expected or imagined

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective so unexpected as to have not been imagined

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • At times I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success, at others I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience.

    Curie, Marie Sklodowska 2009

  • If we give up our vague, devastating quest, I suspect the Iraqis will have a lot of suddenly frantic help from the chaos-sponsors and bystanders in their neighborhood, the countries which have been so deeply delighted at the ongoing spectacle of America's ignorant blunder, at the unhoped-for crippling of America, at the astonishing waste of American lives and resources.

    Frank Dwyer: Better Numbers 2008

  • Meantime, the Lady of Avenel, with agonizing anxiety, saw that the efforts that the poor boy made to keep himself afloat, were now exchanged for a faint struggling, which would soon have been over, but for aid equally prompt and unhoped-for.

    The Abbot 2008

  • But for this unhoped-for help, I must have perished.

    Le Colonel Chabert 2007

  • So with her divine hands she snatched from the fire the dear son whom Metaneira had born unhoped-for in the palace, and cast him from her to the ground; for she was terribly angry in her heart.

    Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, and Homerica 2007

  • He represents that youth by his incomplete beauties and his headlong falls, by the turbulent torrent of his existence, with its sudden reverses and its unhoped-for triumphs.

    A Daughter of Eve 2007

  • If he had thought soberly over the probable future of a beautiful and penniless girl like Eve Chardon, he would have seen that this marriage was a piece of unhoped-for good fortune.

    Two Poets 2007

  • But for this unhoped-for help, I must have perished.

    Le Colonel Chabert 2007

  • During the first confused thoughts of early slumber, I tried to audit my accounts so as to explain this unhoped-for windfall; but I lost myself in useless calculations, and slept.

    The Magic Skin 2007

  • If he had thought soberly over the probable future of a beautiful and penniless girl like Eve Chardon, he would have seen that this marriage was a piece of unhoped-for good fortune.

    Two Poets 2007

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