Other forms: surprised, surprising, surprises
A surprise is something that happens when you completely did not expect it. A nice surprise, take by surprise, a surprise party.
Take somebody by surprise is the fixed phrase. As an adjective it goes before the noun: a surprise visit, a surprise announcement. As a verb it means to cause that feeling, and be surprised is the state. Note surprisingly, which is a very common sentence adverb; and that surprise, surprise said flatly means the opposite — that whatever happened was entirely predictable.
1nounsurpriseSomething that happens when you did not expect it.~98%
“Don't tell Mum about the party; it's a surprise!”
2verbcauseTo cause that feeling in somebody.~2%
“It surprised nobody who had been paying attention.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 16 sentences found in the wild and placed 16 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
surprise is an unexpected event.
Old French sorprendre means to overtake — sur, over, plus prendre, to take. A surprise was originally a military overtaking, and being taken by surprise is the phrase that keeps the original meaning intact.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰed-
Latin
super-
Old French
sorprendre — to overtake
Middle French
surprise — an overtake
Middle English
surprise
English, today
surprise
Built from
From Middle English surprise, borrowed from Middle French surprise (“an overtake”), nominal use of the past participle of Old French sorprendre (“to overtake”), from sor- (“over”) + prendre (“to take”), from Latin super- + Latin prendere, contracted from prehendere (“to grasp, seize”). a doublet of suppli.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA