unpredictable
The wind blows unpredictably and can stop suddenly.
In competitive markets, things change, sometimes rapidly and unpredictably.
The voices in his head often terrified him, causing him to react unpredictably.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Not expected or planned
abrupt end
abrupt halt
abruptly
abruptness
ad hoc
inadvertence
inadvertency
inadvertent
inadvertently
inconceivable
sharpness
sine die
spirit
spontaneity
spontaneous
unsuspected
untimely
untoward
unwilled
unwitting

Examples of unpredictably

unpredictably
A mobile robot should keep an unpredictably moving target in a cluttered environment within its field of view.
The condition remits and relapses unpredictably, which makes study difficult.
This model is suited to pneumatic tyre odometry errors where the wheel separation has been found to vary unpredictably with floor surface and path curvature.
If sickness varied unpredictably, they were all threatened with bankruptcy.
They're triads, but juxtaposed unpredictably with respect to the criteria that one might normally use, though it's completely predictable from a different point of view.
It is a condition which progresses and relapses unpredictably but in some individuals it becomes disabling and chronically painful.
Not only may this move the heap pointer unpredictably, but it may trigger garbage collection, which may rearrange the relative positions of the closures.
Occasionally and unpredictably, a tone is presented indicating that the planned response to the go-stimulus should be withheld.
Many migration decisions evolve incrementally and unpredictably, and some produce a series of outward and return moves in response to personal or family needs.
We need it because illness can strike us unpredictably, and because some of the consequences of illness can be limited by financial input.
The length or arity of a structure is known at compile time, whilst a list may grow unpredictably.
Wavering back and forth within a narrow range, the line is fragmented unpredictably by rests of varying lengths.
In reference [21], the observers are assumed to be moving unpredictably.
It may be specifically unpredictably frightening behavior that is the key.
Lengthening applies unpredictably among unapocopated disyllables containing a sonorant consonant in the post-tonic rhyme.
See all examples of unpredictably
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.