What does “test surpriză” mean in Romanian?

Test surpriză is the Romanian “pop quiz” — the unannounced test every student dreads. Notice the word order: the noun surpriză (“surprise”) sits after test, where English puts it first (“surprise test”). Romanian regularly stacks a noun behind another to describe it this way, so the second noun acts like a built-in label — “a test, the surprise kind.”

The same trick gives you vizită surpriză (“surprise visit”), cadou surpriză (“surprise gift”), and oaspete surpriză (“surprise guest”) — head noun first, surpriză tacked on after. Surpriză itself is a French borrowing (from surprise), feminine, plural surprize. Here the joke is a role-reversal: on the last day of school, students hand the teachers a test surpriză, grading them on who yelled most and who skipped class — then award a deliberately low mark.