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出人意料

Mandarin · pinyin chū rén yì liào

unexpected (idiom)
surprising

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Characters in this entry

出: chū · go out, send out; stand; produce
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
意: yì · thought, idea, opinion; think
料: liào · consider, conjecture; materials, ingredients

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–2–4–4 · chu1 ren2 yi4 liao4

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

ceot1 jan4 ji3 liu6

Cantonese word readings for 出人意料. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) to exceed people's expectations; to be unexpected; to be surprising

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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