ACCIDENT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Accident

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/ˈæksədənt/ Listen

noun

Accident n.

1.

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. "Of moving accidents by flood and field." "Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident: It is the very place God meant for thee."

2.

(Gram.) A property attached to a word, but not essential to it, as gender, number, case.

3.

(Her.) A point or mark which may be retained or omitted in a coat of arms.

4.

(Log.)

(a)

A property or quality of a thing which is not essential to it, as whiteness in paper; an attribute.

(b)

A quality or attribute in distinction from the substance, as sweetness, softness.

5.

Any accidental property, fact, or relation; an accidental or nonessential; as, beauty is an accident. "This accident, as I call it, of Athens being situated some miles from the sea."

6.

Unusual appearance or effect. (Obs.) Note: Accident, in Law, is equivalent to casus, or such unforeseen, extraordinary, extraneous interference as is out of the range of ordinary calculation.

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Etymology of 'Accident'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Accident" Quotes from Famous Books

... Frenchman whose life Traverse had, partly by accident and partly by design, succeeded in saving, comprehended perfectly well how narrow his escape from death had been, and attributed his restoration solely to the genius, skill and boldness of his young physician, and was grateful accordingly with all a ...

— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... devotee, sounded the true note of Teaism when he wrote that the greatest pleasure he knew was to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. For Teaism is the art of concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet thoroughly, and is thus humour ...

— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... for it wrought on her The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night, To help to take her from her borrow'd grave, Being the time the potion's force should cease. But he which bore my letter, Friar John, Was stay'd by accident; and yesternight Return'd my letter back. Then all alone At the prefixed hour of her waking Came I to take her from her kindred's vault; Meaning to keep her closely at my cell Till I conveniently could send to Romeo: But when I came,—some ...

— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... can no longer ask British statesmen, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" That the plan adopted by the Government is the better of the two at present mooted I shall endeavour to show. In the first place, it is a mere accident that Trinity College has continued so long the sole College in the University of Dublin, Chief Baron Palles, in a very able note appended to the report, disentangles from a number of legal decisions and statutory declarations ...

— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not ...

— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

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