Accident

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: ac=ci=dent

CIDE DICTIONARY

Accident, n. [F. accident, fr. L. accidens, -dentis, p. pr. of accidere to happen; ad + cadere to fall. See Cadence, Case.].

•  Literally, a befalling; an event that takes place without one's foresight or expectation; an undesigned, sudden, and unexpected event; chance; contingency; often, an undesigned and unforeseen occurrence of an afflictive or unfortunate character; a casualty; a mishap; as, to die by an accident.  [1913 Webster]

  "Of moving accidents by flood and field."  [1913 Webster]

  "Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident:
  It is the very place God meant for thee."  [1913 Webster]
•  A property attached to a word, but not essential to it, as gender, number, case.  [1913 Webster]
•  A point or mark which may be retained or omitted in a coat of arms.  [1913 Webster]
•  A property or quality of a thing which is not essential to it, as whiteness in paper; an attribute.  [1913 Webster]
•  Any accidental property, fact, or relation; an accidental or nonessential; as, beauty is an accident.  [1913 Webster]

  "This accident, as I call it, of Athens being situated some miles from the sea."  [1913 Webster]
•  Unusual appearance or effect.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]

  " Accident, in Law, is equivalent to casus, or such unforeseen, extraordinary, extraneous interference as is out of the range of ordinary calculation."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Accident, n.
1 an event that is without apparent cause, or is unexpected (their early arrival was just an accident).
2 an unfortunate event, esp. one causing physical harm or damage, brought about unintentionally.
3 occurrence of things by chance; the working of fortune (accident accounts for much in life).
4 colloq. an occurrence of involuntary urination or defecation.
5 an irregularity in structure.

Idiom

accident-prone (of a person) subject to frequent accidents. by accident unintentionally.

Etymology

ME f. OF f. LL accidens f. L accidere (as AC-, cadere fall)

DEVIL DICTIONARY

Accident

n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.

THESAURUS

Accident

accessary, accessory, accidental, addendum, addition, adjunct, adventure, appendage, appurtenance, auxiliary, blow, blunder, calamity, casualty, cataclysm, catastrophe, chance, chance hit, collateral, collision, coming to be, contingency, contingent, contretemps, crack-up, crash, destiny, disaster, event, eventuality, eventuation, extra, fate, fluke, fortuity, fortune, freak accident, grief, hap, happening, happenstance, hazard, ill hap, incidence, incidental, inessential, kismet, long odds, long shot, luck, lucky shot, materialization, mere chance, misadventure, mischance, misfortune, mishap, mistake, nasty blow, nonessential, not-self, other, pileup, realization, secondary, serendipity, shipwreck, shock, smash, smashup, staggering blow, subsidiary, superaddition, supplement, tragedy, unessential, wreck

ROGET THESAURUS

Accident

Evil

N evil, ill, harm, hurt, mischief, nuisance, machinations of the devil, Pandora's box, ills that flesh is heir to, blow, buffet, stroke, scratch, bruise, wound, gash, mutilation, mortal blow, wound, immedicabile vulnus, damage, loss, disadvantage, prejudice, drawback, disaster, accident, casualty, mishap, bad job, devil to pay, calamity, bale, catastrophe, tragedy, ruin, adversity, mental suffering, demon, (Evil spirit) bane, (cause of evil), badness, (Production of Evil), painfulness, evil doer, outrage, wrong, injury, foul play, bad turn, ill turn, disservice, spoliation, grievance, crying evil, disastrous, bad, awry, out of joint, disadvantageous, amis, wrong, ill, to one's cost, moving accidents by flood and field.

Extrinsicality

N extrinsicality, objectiveness, non ego, extraneousness, accident, appearance, phenomenon, derived from without, objective, extrinsic, extrinsical, extraneous, modal, adventitious, ascititious, adscititious, incidental, accidental, nonessential, contingent, fortuitous, implanted, ingrafted, inculcated, infused, outward, apparent, extrinsically.

Adversity

N adversity, evil, failure, bad luck, ill luck, evil luck, adverse luck, hard fortune, hard hap, hard luck, hard lot, frowns of fortune, evil dispensation, evil star, evil genius, vicissitudes of life, ups and downs of life, broken fortunes, hard case, hard lines, hard life, sea of troubles, peck of troubles, hell upon earth, slough of despond, trouble, hardship, curse, blight, blast, load, pressure, pressure of the times, iron age, evil day, time out of joint, hard times, bad times, sad times, rainy day, cloud, dark cloud, gathering clouds, ill wind, visitation, infliction, affliction, bitter pill, care, trial, the sport of fortune, mishap, mischance, misadventure, misfortune, disaster, calamity, catastrophe, accident, casualty, cross, reverse, check, contretemps, rub, backset, comedown, setback, losing game, falling, fall, downfall, ruination, ruinousness, undoing, extremity, ruin, unfortunate, unblest, unhappy, unlucky, improsperous, unprosperous, hoodooed, luckless, hapless, out of luck, in trouble, in a bad way, in an evil plight, under a cloud, clouded, ill off, badly off, in adverse circumstances, poor, behindhand, down in the world, decayed, undone, on the road to ruin, on its last legs, on the wane, in one's utmost need, planet-struck, devoted, born under an evil star, born with a wooden ladle in one's mouth, ill-fated, ill-starred, ill-omened, adverse, untoward, disastrous, calamitous, ruinous, dire, deplorable.

Eventuality

N eventuality, event, occurrence, incident, affair, matter, thing, episode, happening, proceeding, contingency, juncture, experience, fact, matter of fact, naked fact, bare facts, just the facts, phenomenon, advent, business, concern, transaction, dealing, proceeding, circumstance, particular, casualty, accident, adventure, passage, crisis, pass, emergency, contingency, consequence, opportunity (occasion), the world, life, things, doings, affairs in general, things in general, affairs in general, the times, state of affairs, order of the day, course of things, tide of things, stream of things, current of things, run of things, march of things, course of events, ups and downs of life, vicissitudes of life, chapter of accidents, situation, happening, going on, doing, current, in the wind, in the air, afloat, on foot, afoot, on the tapis, at issue, in question, incidental, eventful, stirring, bustling, full of incident, memorable, momentous, signal, eventually, in the event of, in case, just in case, in the course of things, as things, times go, as the world goes, wags, as the tree falls, cat jumps, as it may turn out, happen, that's the way the ball bounces, that's the way the cookie crumbles, you never know what may turn up, you never know what the future will bring, the plot thickens, breasts the blows of circumstance, so runs round of life from hour to hour, sprinkled along the waste of years.

Chance

N chance, lot, fate, luck, good luck, mascot, speculation, venture, stake, game of chance, mere shot, random shot, blind bargain, leap in the dark, pig in a poke, fluke, potluck, faro bank, flyer, limit, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, drawing lots, sortilegy, sortition, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, rouge et noir, hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo, craps, faro, roulette, pitch and toss, chuck, farthing, cup tossing, heads or tails cross and pile, poker-dice, wager, bet, betting, gambling, the turf, gaming house, gambling house, betting house, bucket shop, gambling joint, totalizator, totalizer, hell, betting ring, dice, dice box, gambler, gamester, man of the turf, adventurer, dicer, fortuitous, unintentional, unintended, accidental, not meant, undesigned, purposed, unpremeditated, unforeseen, uncontemplated, never thought of, random, indiscriminate, promiscuous, undirected, aimless, driftless, designless, purposeless, causeless, without purpose, possible, unforeseeable, unpredictable, chancy, risky, speculative, dicey, randomly, by chance, fortuitously, unpredictably, unforeseeably, casually, unintentionally, unwittingly, en passant, by the way, incidentally, as it may happen, at random, at a venture, at haphazard, acierta errando, dextro tempore, fearful concatenation of circumstances, fortuitous combination of circumstances, le jeu est le fils d'avarice et le pere du desespo, the happy combination of fortuitous circumstances, the fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms, God does not play dice with the universe, chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit, fate, equal chance, lottery, tombola, toss up, turn of the table, turn of the cards, hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate, cast of the dice, throw of the dice, heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, probability, possibility, odds, long odds, run of luck, accidentalness, main chance, odds on, favorable odds, contingency, dependence (uncertainty), situation (circumstance), statistics, theory of Probabilities, theory of Chances, bookmaking, assurance, speculation, gaming, casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate, random, statistical, possible, unintentional, by chance, accidentally, by accident, casually, perchance, for aught one knows, as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it, as it may be, as it may chance, as it may turn up, as it may happen, as the case may be, grasps the skirts of happy chance, the accident of an accident, There but for the grace of God go I.