Associations to the word «Surprisal»

Wiktionary

SURPRISAL, noun. (obsolete) (military) A surprise attack or ambush; a sudden or unexpected assault. [16th-19th c.]
SURPRISAL, noun. (obsolete) A sudden coming-upon someone or something unexpectedly or unawares. [17th c.]
SURPRISAL, noun. (obsolete) A surprising event or occurrence. [17th-19th c.]
SURPRISAL, noun. (obsolete) The feeling caused by being surprised; surprise, shock, amazement. [17th-19th c.]
SURPRISAL, noun. An information measure first defined by Myron Tribus in his 1961 book Thermostatics and Thermodynamics (D. Van Nostrand, New York) so that it is equal in bits to the base-2 log of 1 over the probability, with the result that e.g. the number of choices equals 2 to the number of bits.

Dictionary definition

SURPRISAL, noun. The act of surprising someone.

Wise words

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
C. S. Lewis