How to Use unanticipated in a Sentence

unanticipated

adjective
  • The new policy has had some unanticipated side effects.
  • How those games laid out, though, was the unanticipated part.
    — Sam Donnellon, Philly.com, 27 Apr. 2018
  • This triple-punch has left farmers with an unanticipated milk surplus and no place to store it.
    — Ed Townley For Cnn Business Perspectives, CNN, 8 June 2020
  • Have an idea, a link, your own story of unanticipated kindness on the road?
    — National Geographic, 10 Dec. 2019
  • But this unanticipated assistance comes at the cost of the fetch rover.
    — Jonathan O'Callaghan, Scientific American, 5 Apr. 2023
  • So, a couple of things arise from that, though, that present their own unanticipated challenges.
    — Jeff Young, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Aug. 2025
  • But the lesson of the genie is that there will always be unanticipated hacks.
    — Bruce Schneier, Wired, 19 Apr. 2021
  • Not one to stay idle, the drummer has filled his unanticipated free time with various projects.
    — Keith Spera, NOLA.com, 12 Aug. 2020
  • While the initial shock of the attack has worn off, an unanticipated grief remains that even time can’t seem to shake.
    — Rachel Scott, ABC News, 6 Jan. 2022
  • That’s where an emergency fund comes in—to protect you when unanticipated costs come up.
    — Sarah Scott, Parents, 20 Feb. 2025
  • An unanticipated finding, across all three surveys, was the outsized toll on young adults.
    — Claudia Wallis, Scientific American, 23 Nov. 2020
  • This is a daunting and often unanticipated issue and any fixes may take weeks to show.
    — Iman Bashir, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2022
  • The discovery of so much life – and such big life – was unanticipated, said Thurber.
    — Elizabeth Weise, USA Today, 13 Apr. 2025
  • Due to unanticipated road closures the auto-car couldn’t make it to her and her order would have to be canceled.
    — Elliot Ackerman, WIRED, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Dozens of those plans are now up in the air, as the public health impacts of the virus present a massive unanticipated expense.
    — Tim McDonnell, Quartz Africa, 27 June 2020
  • But Love also is well aware that desperate times can lead to the unanticipated.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 27 Mar. 2023
  • My hopes are that the money was spent and that this was just an unanticipated event and maybe these bridges need to be rebuilt in their entirety.
    — Martin E. Comas, Orlando Sentinel, 24 Feb. 2023
  • The approach, however, risks losses in the event of an unanticipated jump in prices.
    — Max Zahn, ABC News, 1 May 2026
  • Due to its large but somewhat unanticipated appeal, some fans are wondering whether a sequel will be in the works.
    — Suzanne Blake, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Aug. 2025
  • No one found an unanticipated way during the competition, but one team did after the fact.
    — Sarah Scoles, Wired, 6 Aug. 2020
  • The abundance of games that have broken in unanticipated ways has primed us for a wild Final Four.
    — Chris Johnson, SI.com, 30 Mar. 2018
  • Through it all, the city has taken the run of curiosities in stride and in some ways embraced the unanticipated attention.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 3 Oct. 2021
  • But unanticipated problems at the construction site have put that portion of the project more than a year behind schedule.
    — Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2019
  • But the details of the sets, such as the embryo cold storage area, that might prompt shoppers to do unanticipated window shopping.
    — Dewayne Bevil, orlandosentinel.com, 28 May 2021
  • Money that Ford spends paying unanticipated tariffs is money that could have been put on the hood to help move new pickups.
    — Byron Hurd, The Drive, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The pair agree that Platt’s proposal proved more unanticipated than Galvin’s.
    — Jack Smart, Peoplemag, 16 July 2023
  • But a few unanticipated curveballs were thrown at eager listeners in the past 24 hours.
    — Natalie Morin, refinery29.com, 11 June 2021
  • Our family dogs Annie and Leo offered him much love and brought unanticipated joy to his tired face.
    — courant.com, 20 Nov. 2019
  • One of these often unanticipated costs is for veterinary bills that may break the family budget.
    — David L. Weimer, The Conversation, 23 Jan. 2026
  • That said, this is an unanticipated loss that the Saints might not be able to rectify for 2017.
    — Larry Holder, NOLA.com, 17 June 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unanticipated.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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