出人意料 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• unexpected
• surprising

Character by character

• 出chūto go out, to send out; stand; produce
• 人rénman, person; people
• 意yìthought, idea, opinion; desire, wish; meaning, int
• 料liàoingredients, materials; to conjecture, to guess

Idioms sharing a character

• 仓皇出逃 cāng huáng chū táo
• 倾巢而出 qīng cháo ér chū
• 出乎意外 chū hū yì wài
• 出乎意料 chū hū yì liào
• 出乎预料 chū hū yù liào
• 出人意外 chū rén yì wài
• 出人头地 chū rén tóu dì
• 出其不意 chū qí bù yì
• 出口成章 chū kǒu chéng zhāng
• 出水芙蓉 chū shuǐ fú róng

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.