Meanings
- alternativeAlternative form of all of a sudden.
Then of a sudden the rope was still—the stone had caught at the very edge. Gingerly the ape-man clambered up the frail rope.
1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 2081 more example
Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 1
Synonyms & antonyms
adverbquickly and without warning
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Cite this entry
of a sudden. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/of%20a%20sudden
“of a sudden.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/of%20a%20sudden. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “of a sudden,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/of%20a%20sudden.
Source: of a sudden on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.