Meaning

Occurring quickly with little or no warning or expectation; instantly..

Definitions by Sense

1. Occurring quickly with little or no warning or expectation; instantly.
2. (obsolete) Hastily prepared or employed; quick; rapid.
3. (obsolete) Hasty; violent; rash; precipitate.
4. (poetic) Suddenly.
5. (obsolete) An unexpected occurrence; a surprise.

Example Sentences

The sudden drop in temperature left everyone cold and confused.

From lightninges and tempeſtes, from plage, peſtilence, and famine, from battayle and murther, and from ſodayn death. / Good lord deliver us.

I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.

Never was such a sudden scholar made.

Thus these pious flourishes and colours, examined thoroughly, are like the apples of Asphaltis, appearing goodly to the sudden eye; but look well upon them, or at least but touch them, and they turn into cinders.

And if along with these should come ⁠The man I held as half-divine; ⁠Should strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home; […] I should not feel it to be strange.

I have no joy of this contract to-night: / It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;

Herbs of every leaf that sudden flowered.

Word Forms

• suddener
• suddenest
• more sudden
• most sudden
• suddens

Synonyms for sudden

Antonyms for sudden

Related Words

When Should You Use Sudden?

Use sudden when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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