incidental

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: in=ci=den=tal

CIDE DICTIONARY

incidental, a. 

 Happening, as an occasional event, without regularity; coming without design; casual; accidental; hence, not of prime concern; subordinate; collateral; as, an incidental conversation; an incidental occurrence; incidental expenses.  [1913 Webster]
"By some, religious duties . . . appear to be regarded . . . as an incidental business."
"I treat either or incidentally of colors."  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Accidental; casual; fortuitous; contingent; chance; collateral. See Accidental.

incidental, n. 

 An incident; that which is incidental; esp., in the plural, an aggregate of subordinate or incidental items not particularized; as, the expense of tuition and incidentals.  Pope.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

incidental, adj.
1 (often foll. by to) a having a minor role in relation to a more important thing, event, etc. b not essential.
2 (foll. by to) liable to happen.
3 (foll. by on, upon) following as a subordinate event.

Idiom

incidental music music used as a background to the action of a film, broadcast, etc.

THESAURUS

incidental

accessory, acciaccatura, accident, accidental, accompanying, addendum, addition, additional, adjunct, ado, adrift, adscititious, adventitious, afloat, afoot, aleatory, ancillary, appendage, appoggiatura, appurtenance, appurtenant, arabesque, article, ascititious, aspect, auxiliary, beside the mark, beside the point, beside the question, by-the-way, cadence, cadenza, case, casual, causeless, chance, chancy, circumstantial, collateral, coloratura, conditional, contingency, contingent, count, current, datum, destinal, detail, dicey, division, doing, element, embellishment, eventuating, extra, extraneous, extrinsic, facet, fact, factor, fatal, fatidic, fioritura, flight, flourish, fluky, fortuitous, going on, grace, grace note, haphazard, happening, happenstance, iffy, immaterial, impertinent, in hand, in the wind, inadmissible, inapplicable, inapposite, inappropriate, incidental note, inconsequent, inconsequential, indeterminate, inessential, insignificant, instance, irrelative, irrelevant, item, lesser, long mordent, matter, mere chance, minor, minor detail, minutia, minutiae, mordent, negligible, nihil ad rem, nonessential, not at issue, not-self, occasional, occurring, odd, off, off the subject, on, on foot, ongoing, ornament, other, out-of-the-way, paltry, parenthetical, part-time, particular, passage, passing, petty, point, pralltriller, prevailing, prevalent, provisional, random, regard, respect, resultant, risky, roulade, run, secondary, serendipitous, side, single mordent, spare, subordinate, subsidiary, superadded, superaddition, superfluous, supervenient, supplement, supplemental, supplementary, taking place, thing, trifling, trivial, turn, uncaused, under way, undetermined, unessential, unexpected, unforeseeable, unforeseen, unimportant, unlooked-for, unplanned, unpredictable

ROGET THESAURUS

incidental

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.

Circumstance

N circumstance, situation, phase, position, posture, attitude, place, point, terms, regime, footing, standing, status, occasion, juncture, conjunctive, contingency, predicament, emergence, emergency, exigency, crisis, pinch, pass, push, occurrence, turning point, bearings, how the land lies, surroundings, context, environment, location, contingency, dependence (uncertainty), causation, attribution, circumstantial, given, conditional, provisional, critical, modal, contingent, incidental, adventitious, limitative, in the circumstances, under the circumstances, the circumstances, conditions, thus, in such wise, accordingly, that being the case, such being the case, in view of the circumstances, that being so, sith, since, seeing that, as matters stand, as things go, as times go, conditionally, provided, if, in case, if so, if so be, if it be so, depending on circumstances, in certain circumstances, under certain conditions, if it so happen, if it so turn out, in the event of, in such a contingency, in such a case, in such an event, provisionally, unless, without, according to circumstances, according to the occasion, as it may happen, as it may turn out, as it may be, as the case may be, as the wind blows, pro re nata, yet are my sins not those of circumstance.

Irrelation

N irrelation, dissociation, misrelation, inapplicability, inconnection, multifariousness, disconnection, inconsequence, independence, incommensurability, irreconcilableness, heterogeneity, unconformity, irrelevancy, impertinence, nihil ad rem, intrusion, non-pertinence, irrelative, irrespective, unrelated, arbitrary, independent, unallied, unconnected, disconnected, adrift, isolated, insular, extraneous, strange, alien, foreign, outlandish, exotic, not comparable, incommensurable, heterogeneous, unconformable, irrelevant, inapplicable, not pertinent, not to the, purpose, impertinent, inapposite, beside the mark, a propos de bottes, aside from the purpose, away from the purpose, foreign to the purpose, beside the purpose, beside the question, beside the transaction, beside the point, misplaced, traveling out of the record, remote, far-fetched, out of the way, forced, neither here nor there, quite another thing, detached, segregate, disquiparant, multifarious, discordant, incidental, parenthetical, obiter dicta, episodic, parenthetically, by the way, by the by, en passant, incidentally, irrespectively, without reference to, without regard to, in the abstract, a se.

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.

Liability

N liability, liableness, possibility, contingency, susceptivity, susceptibility, exposure, liable, subject, in danger, open to, exposed to, obnoxious to, answerable, unexempt from, apt to, dependent on, incident to, contingent, incidental, possible, on the cards, within range of, at the mercy of.