unsurprise

unsurprise

English

Etymology

un- +‎ surprise

Noun

unsurprise (countable and uncountable, plural unsurprises)

1. Absence of surprise.
   • 2017, Robert Power, Tell it to the Dog: a memoir of sorts (→ISBN):

     And there, in the shadows of the hallway, was my mother, looking up, unsurprised, in this house of unsurprises.

Verb

unsurprise (third-person singular simple present unsurprises, present participle unsurprising, simple past and past participle unsurprised)

1. (rare) To not surprise: to reverse the surprise of, or fail to surprise.
   • 2013, John D. Lee, Alex Kirlik, The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Engineering (Oxford University Press, →ISBN), page 405:

     To summarize, theories about learning from failure depict a rather straightforward process:

     The surprise of failure is followed by a systematic assessment to “unsurprise the past.” Once the part, or otherwise malfunctioning component, has been identified, learning from failure is a question of figuring out new, more functional cause-effect relationships.

   • 2014, S.R. Palumbo, Passion Flower (→ISBN), page 148:

     “Then try to unsurprise yourself.” But Gienna couldn't remember a thing. His mind went blank. He had thought about her continuously and pictured her a thousand times every moment he was away from her—even dreamed about her—and how the fuck could he not remember a thing like that? “Is this supposed to be the message?” “Tell me the color.” “Dark,” he said. “Sort of brownish-black.”