[f. SURPRISE v. + -ING2.]
1. Coming upon one unexpectedly; taking unawares; capturing by sudden attack; also, † overpowering.
1645. Waller, Apol for having Loved before, 2. They that never had the use Of the Grapes surprizing juyce.
1655. Vaughan, Silex Scint., Day of Judgem., ii. When all shall streame and lighten round, And with surprizing flames Both Stars and Elements Confound.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., V. x. (1848), 335. The unwary Bird, while she is gazing upon that glittering Light … heedlessly gives into the Reach of the surprizing Nets.
2. Causing surprise or wonder by its unexpectedness; astonishingly wonderful.
1663. Patrick, Parab. Pilgr., xiii. (1697), 91. They can present you with a thousand Abrahams, and as many Josephs, whose adventures were so strange, that fiction is not able to invent any thing so surprising.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., I. b ij. It is a surprizing thing, that at the same time he could pursue his other Observations of the Countrey, and study the Languages.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 25 Oct. 1644. One of the lions leaped to a surprising height.
1726. Butler, Serm. Rolls, vii. 125. There is a more surprizing Piece of Iniquity yet behind.
1850. Scoresby, Cheever’s Whalem. Adv., Pref. (1858), 6. Certain surprising incidents herein recorded.
1908. R. Bagot, A. Cuthbert, vi. 49. It was not … surprising if she had, comparatively early in life, developed a certain love of authority.
† b. Exciting admiration, admirable; occas. advb. Obs.
1580. G. Harvey, Lett. to Spenser, in Spenser’s Poet. Wks. (1912), 627/1. The renowned, and surprizing, Archpoet Homer.
1648. Boyle, Seraph. Love (1660), 125. The neat and surprizing Characters and Flourishes of a Greek and Hebrew Bible curiously Printed.
1687. Mrs. Behn, Lucky Chance, I. i. Rise Cloris, charming Maid arise! And baffle breaking Day, Show the adoring World thy Eyes Are more surprizing Gay.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 3 Aug. 1654. The river running so delightfully under it, that it may passe for one of the most surprising seates one should meete with.
1831. D. E. Williams, Life Sir T. Lawrence, I. 343. It is really a surprising portrait.
