all of a sudden

1. 1.

   without warning

   “all at once, he started shouting”

   Synonymsall at once
2. 2.

   happening unexpectedly

   “suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her side”

   Synonymssuddenlyof a sudden

Questions about all of a sudden

What does all of a sudden mean?

all of a sudden means "without warning". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for all of a sudden?

Close synonyms include all at once, suddenly, of a sudden. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is all of a sudden a common word?

all of a sudden is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.