sudden

adjective

1. 1

   Occurring quickly with little or no warning or expectation; instantly.

   The sudden drop in temperature left everyone cold and confused.

   From lightninges and tempeſtes, from plage, peſtilence, and famine, from battayle and murther, and from ſodayn death. / Good lord deliver us.

   I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.

2. 2

   obsoleteHastily prepared or employed; quick; rapid.

   Never was such a sudden scholar made.

   Thus these pious flourishes and colours, examined thoroughly, are like the apples of Asphaltis, appearing goodly to the sudden eye; but look well upon them, or at least but touch them, and they turn into cinders.

   And if along with these should come ⁠The man I held as half-divine; ⁠Should strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home; […] I should not feel it to be strange.

3. 3

   obsoleteHasty; violent; rash; precipitate.

   I have no joy of this contract to-night: / It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;

adverb

1. 1

   Suddenly.

   Herbs of every leaf that sudden flowered.

noun

1. 1

   obsoleteAn unexpected occurrence; a surprise.

Forms

plural

suddens

comparative

suddener, more sudden

superlative

suddenest, most sudden