unawares

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

When asked why the riverside summer camp was not evacuated, officials said the sudden scale of the deluge caught them unawares.

From BBC • Jul. 6, 2025

All of those clips are mesmerizing and alluring and haunting, as if we’re actually looking at invisible spirits or fairies captured unawares.

From New York Times • Dec. 6, 2024

Because forecasters were caught unawares, so were local residents, who only expected perhaps a Category 2 storm.

From Scientific American • Oct. 25, 2023

Or perhaps radioactivity would bring about a dystopian nightmare: As Rutherford liked to say, "Some fool in a laboratory might blow up the universe unawares" by triggering a planetary chain reaction.

From Salon • Aug. 12, 2023

With this benediction, abruptly, he set oiT running; and I, caught unawares, ran after him, and within a few steps had mastered his pace.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson