take by surprise
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He would have opened the door suddenly in that case, hoping to take by surprise whosoever of the clan were guarding Linda.
From The Strength of the Pines by Marshall, Edison
I expect to take by surprise a newly-married pair in their honeymoon, and I find a state of things here which I should never have supposed possible.
From Success and How He Won It by Werner, E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers)
The Buccaneers next landed 100 men, hoping to take by surprise the city of La Serena.
From The Monarchs of the Main, Volume II (of 3) Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers by Thornbury, Walter
She was taken by surprise, as was intended, but she was a woman whom it was not wise to take by surprise, if you wanted her to show you what was in her mind.
From The Eldest Son by Marshall, Archibald
He then prepared for a bold and sudden movement, which should take by surprise one flank of our army.
From Three Years in the Sixth Corps A Concise Narrative of Events in the Army of the Potomac, from 1861 to the Close of the Rebellion, April, 1865 by Stevens, George T.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
