出其不意
chū qí bù yì
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
To act when the other side least expects it; to take someone by surprise. Used for attacks, moves in games and sport, and surprise questions or visits.
Hành động vào lúc đối phương không ngờ tới, khiến họ không kịp đề phòng. Dùng cho đòn tấn công, nước đi trong thi đấu hay câu hỏi, chuyến thăm bất ngờ.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 061 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): etymology of “xuất kì bất ý” = 出其不意 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “xuất kì bất ý” (xuat-ki-bat-y). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “出其不意” mean?
To act when the other side least expects it; to take someone by surprise. Used for attacks, moves in games and sport, and surprise questions or visits. Literally: appear where they do not expect
Is “出其不意” formal or informal?
出其不意 is generally neutral.