意料之外 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• contrary to expectation; unexpected

Character by character

• 意yìthought, idea, opinion; desire, wish; meaning, int
• 料liàoingredients, materials; to conjecture, to guess
• 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
• 外wàiout, outside, external; foreign; in addition

Idioms sharing a character

• 一意孤行 yī yì gū xíng
• 三心二意 sān xīn èr yì
• 不怀好意 bù huái hǎo yì
• 全心全意 quán xīn quán yì
• 出乎意外 chū hū yì wài
• 出乎意料 chū hū yì liào
• 出人意外 chū rén yì wài
• 出人意料 chū rén yì liào
• 出其不意 chū qí bù yì
• 善解人意 shàn jiě rén yì

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