Word Meanings - ACCIDENTAL - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. Happening by chance, or unexpectedly; taking place not according to the usual course of things; casual; fortuitous; as, an accidental visit. 2. Nonessential; not necessary belonging; incidental; as, are accidental to a play. Accidental chords

Additional info about word: ACCIDENTAL

1. Happening by chance, or unexpectedly; taking place not according to the usual course of things; casual; fortuitous; as, an accidental visit. 2. Nonessential; not necessary belonging; incidental; as, are accidental to a play. Accidental chords , those which contain one or more tones foreign to their proper harmony. -- Accidental colors , colors depending on the hypersensibility of the retina of the eye for complementary colors. They are purely subjective sensations of color which often result from the contemplation of actually colored bodies. -- Accidental point , the point in which a right line, drawn from the eye, parallel to a given right line, cuts the perspective plane; so called to distinguish it from the principal point, or point of view, where a line drawn from the eye perpendicular to the perspective plane meets this plane. -- Accidental lights , secondary lights; effects of light other than ordinary daylight, such as the rays of the sun darting through a cloud, or between the leaves of trees; the effect of moonlight, candlelight, or burning bodies. Fairholt. Syn. -- Casual; fortuitous; contingent; occasional; adventitious. -- Accidental, Incidental, Casual, Fortuitous, Contingent. We speak of a thing as accidental when it falls out as by chance, and not in the regular course of things; as, an accidental meeting, an accidental advantage, etc. We call a thing incidental when it falls, as it were, into some regular course of things, but is secondary, and forms no essential part thereof; as, an incremental remark, an incidental evil, an incidental benefit. We speak of a thing as casual, when it falls out or happens, as it were, by mere chance, without being prearranged or premeditated; as, a casual remark or encounter; a casual observer. An idea of the unimportant is attached to what is casual. Fortuitous is applied to what occurs without any known cause, and in opposition to what has been foreseen; as, a fortuitous concourse of atoms. We call a thing contingent when it is such that, considered in itself, it may or may not happen, but is dependent for its existence on something else; as, the time of my coming will be contingent on intelligence yet to be received.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of ACCIDENTAL)

• Fortuitous
• Accidental
• undesigned
• Incidental
• Casual
• occasional
• appertinent
• concomitant
• concurrent
• accidental
• fortuitous
• Random
• Haphazard
• stray
• chance
• wild
• aimless
• purposeless
• unpremeditated
• casual
• vague
• Separable
• Dissoluble
• removable
• movable
• distinguishable
• divisible

Related words: (words related to ACCIDENTAL)

• ACCIDENTALLY
  In an accidental manner; unexpectedly; by chance; unintentionally; casually; fortuitously; not essentially.
• CHANCELLERY
  Chancellorship. Gower.
• PURPOSELESS
  Having no purpose or result; objectless. Bp. Hall. -- Pur"pose*less*ness, n.
• FORTUITOUS
  Happening independently of human will or means of foresight; resulting from unavoidable physical causes. Abbott. Syn. -- Accidental; casual; contingent; incidental. See Accidental. -- For*tu"i*tous*ly, adv. -- For*tu"i*tous*ness, n. (more info)
• APPERTINENT
  Belonging; appertaining. Coleridge.
• OCCASIONALISM
  The system of occasional causes; -- a name given to certain theories of the Cartesian school of philosophers, as to the intervention of the First Cause, by which they account for the apparent reciprocal action of the soul and the body.
• CASUALISM
  The doctrine that all things exist or are controlled by chance.
• MOVABLE
  1. Capable of being moved, lifted, carried, drawn, turned, or conveyed, or in any way made to change place or posture; susceptible of motion; not fixed or stationary; as, a movable steam engine. 2. Changing from one time to another; as, movable
• VAGUELY
  In a vague manner. What he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak. Hawthorne.
• CHANCEFUL
  Hazardous. Spenser.
• DIVISIBLE
  Capable of being divided or separated. Extended substance . . . is divisible into parts. Sir W. Hamilton. Divisible contract , a contract containing agreements one of which can be separated from the other. -- Divisible offense , an offense
• RANDOMLY
  In a random manner.
• DISSOLUBLE
  1. Capable of being dissolved; having its parts separable by heat or moisture; convertible into a fluid. Woodward. 2. Capable of being disunited.
• CHANCE
  Probability. Note: The mathematical expression, of a chance is the ratio of frequency with which an event happens in the long run. If an event may happen in a ways and may fail in b ways, and each of these a + b ways is equally likely, the chance,
• CHANCELLORSHIP
  The office of a chancellor; the time during which one is chancellor.
• CHANCEL
  lattices, crossbars. (The chancel was formerly inclosed with lattices That part of a church, reserved for the use of the clergy, where the altar, or communion table, is placed. Hence, in modern use; All that part of a cruciform church which is
• DISTINGUISHABLE
  1. Capable of being distinguished; separable; divisible; discernible; capable of recognition; as, a tree at a distance is distinguishable from a shrub. A simple idea being in itself uncompounded . . . is not distinguishable into different ideas.
• SEPARABLE
  Capable of being separated, disjoined, disunited, or divided; as, the separable parts of plants; qualities not separable from the substance in which they exist. -- Sep"a*ra*ble*ness, n. -- Sep"a*ra*bly, adv. Trials permit me not to doubt of the
• AIMLESS
  Without aim or purpose; as, an aimless life. -- Aim"less*ly, adv. -- Aim"less*ness, n.
• CASUALTY
  Numerical loss caused by death, wounds, discharge, or desertion. Casualty ward, A ward in a hospital devoted to the treatment of injuries received by accident. Syn. -- Accident; contingency; fortuity; misfortune. (more info) 1. That which comes
• INDISTINGUISHABLE
  Not distinguishable; not capable of being perceived, known, or discriminated as separate and distinct; hence, not capable of being perceived or known; as, in the distance the flagship was indisguishable; the two copies were indisguishable in form
• INDIVISIBLE
  Not capable of exact division, as one quantity by another; incommensurable. (more info) 1. Not divisible; incapable of being divided, separated, or broken; not separable into parts. "One indivisible point of time." Dryden.
• IRREMOVABLE
  Not removable; immovable; inflexible. Shak. -- Ir`re*mov"a*bly, adv.
• ARCHCHANCELLOR
  A chief chancellor; -- an officer in the old German empire, who presided over the secretaries of the court.
• ASTRAY
  Out of the right, either in a literal or in a figurative sense; wandering; as, to lead one astray. Ye were as sheep going astray. 1 Pet. ii. 25.
• PERCHANCE
  By chance; perhaps; peradventure.
• SUBDIVISIBLE
  Susceptible of subdivision.