Irregular vs Unexpected - What's the difference?
irregular | unexpected | Synonyms |
Nonstandard; not conforming to rules or expectations.
* {{quote-book
, year = 1967
, first = Barbara
, last = Sleigh
, authorlink = Barbara Sleigh
, title = (Jessamy)
, edition = 1993
, location = Sevenoaks, Kent
, publisher=Bloomsbury
, isbn = 0 340 19547 9
, page = 33
, url =
, passage = ‘ “It would be most irregular' Grandpa!” says Miss Cecily frowning and tapping her foot. “Well, we’re a pretty ' irregular family so that’s neither here nor there,” says the old man, impish like. [...] ’
}}
Of a surface, rough.
Without symmetry, regularity, or uniformity.
*{{quote-book, year=1944, author=(w)
, title= * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-01-01, author=Paul Bartel, Ashli Moore
, volume=101, issue=1, page=47–48, magazine=(American Scientist)
, title= * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=
, volume=189, issue=6, page=34, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Not regular; having sides that are not equal or angles that are not equal.
Whose faces are not all regular polygons (or are not equally inclined to each other).
A soldier who is not a member of an official military force and, often, does not follow regular army tactics.
Not expected, anticipated or foreseen.
* , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 *
Irregular is a synonym of unexpected.
As adjectives the difference between irregular and unexpected
is that irregular is irregular while unexpected is not expected, anticipated or foreseen.irregular
English
(wikipedia irregular)Adjective
(en adjective)The Three Corpse Trick, chapter=5 , passage=The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.}}
Avian Migration: The Ultimate Red-Eye Flight, passage=Many of these classic methods are still used, with some modern improvements. For example, with the aid of special microphones and automated sound detection software, ornithologists recently reported […] that pine siskins (Spinus pinus ) undergo an irregular , nomadic type of nocturnal migration.}}
Ian Sample
Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains, passage=Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits. ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.}}
Antonyms
* regularDerived terms
* irregular plural * irregular verbNoun
(en noun)unexpected
English
Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.}}
- The windmill presented unexpected difficulties.
