out of nowhere

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Prepositional phrase

out of nowhere

1. (idiomatic) In an unexpected or inexplicable manner of arrival or occurrence.
   • 1906, Jack London, Brown Wolf:

     It had been no easy matter when he first drifted in mysteriously out of nowhere to their little mountain cottage.

   • 1916, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 12, in Uneasy Money:

     Mr Pickering's 'Hi!' came out of nowhere and hit him like a torpedo.

   • 2015 May 25, Daniel Taylor, “Norwich reach Premier League after early blitz sees off Middlesbrough”, in The Guardian (London)‎^[1]:

     The opening goal came out of nowhere and, buoyed, it was a lovely sequence of crisp passes that culminated in Steven Whittaker playing in Nathan Redmond to double the lead.

Translations

unexpectedly or unexplicably

• Dutch: uit het niets, als een donderslag bij heldere hemel
• Finnish: kuin tyhjästä, puun takaa, puskista
• French: de nulle part (fr)
• German: aus heiterem Himmel
• Hungarian: a semmiből
• Italian: dal nulla, come un fulmine a ciel sereno, all'improvviso (it), inaspettatamente (it)
• Norwegian: ingensteds fra
• Old English: nāhwanon
• Polish: znikąd (pl)
• Portuguese: do nada (pt), da cartola
• Russian: отку́да ни возьми́сь (ru) (otkúda ni vozʹmísʹ)
• Spanish: de la nada
• Turkish: bir anda (tr), durduk yere