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Unexpected vs Spontaneous - What's the difference?

unexpected | spontaneous |

As adjectives the difference between unexpected and spontaneous

is that unexpected is not expected, anticipated or foreseen while spontaneous is self-generated; happening without any apparent external cause.

unexpected

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Not expected, anticipated or foreseen.
  • * , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
  • , chapter=2 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.

    Synonyms

    * See

    Antonyms

    * expected

    Derived terms

    * unexpectedly * unexpectedness

    spontaneous

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Self-generated; happening without any apparent external cause.
  • He made a spontaneous offer of help.
  • Done by one's own free choice, or without planning.
  • proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency without external or conscious constraint
  • arising from a momentary impulse
  • controlled and directed internally; self-active; spontaneous movement characteristic of living things
  • produced without being planted or without human labor]]; [[endemic, indigenous
  • a spontaneous growth of wood
  • Random.
  • Sudden, without warning.
  • Synonyms

    * (self-generated) autonomous * (sense, done by one's own free choice) autonomous * autonomous

    Derived terms

    * spontaneousity