surprisal en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /sə(ɹ)ˈpɹaɪzəl/
Etymology
Etymology tree English surprise Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālisbor. Old French -albor. ▲ Latin -ālis Old French -elbor. ▲ Latin -ālisbor. Middle English -al English -al English surprisal From surprise + -al. (information measure): Defined by Myron Tribus in the 1961 book Thermostatics and Thermodynamics.
Meanings
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(countable, obsolete, uncountable) A surprise attack or ambush; a sudden or unexpected assault.
Their chiefe attempts are by Stratagems, trecheries, or surprisals.
1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 146:
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(countable, obsolete, uncountable) A sudden coming-upon someone or something unexpectedly or unawares.
Because death is uncertain, let us prevent its surprisal.
a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number)”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1830–1831, →OCLC:How to secure the lady from surprisal
1646 (indicated as 1645), John Milton, “Comus”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], →OCLC:
- (countable, obsolete, uncountable) A surprising event or occurrence.
- (countable, obsolete, uncountable) The feeling caused by being surprised; surprise, shock, amazement.
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(countable, uncountable) An information measure as equal in bits (binary digits) to the base-2 log of 1 over the probability, with the result that the number of choices equals 2ⁿ where n is the number of bits.
Because language is produced and processed over time, we get it bit by bit. This allows a measure of the goodness of an incoming word according to how expected it was, given the preceding context: its expectedness or surprisal. Surprisal and expectedness are inverses: When an incoming word is highly expected, its surprisal is close to zero.
2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Preliminaries: Components of Language Structure” (chapter 2), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 23–24:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| surprisals | Number=Plur | lexicographic |