accident

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See also: Accident

English

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A car after an accident (unintended event causing damage).
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Etymology

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First attested in the late 14th century. From Middle English accident, from Old French accident, from Latin accidēns, present active participle of accidō (“happen”); from ad (“to”) + cadō (“fall”). See cadence, case. In the sense “unintended pregnancy”, first attested in 1932.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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accident (countable and uncountable, plural accidents)

  2. An unexpected event with negative consequences occurring without the intention of the one suffering the consequences, and (in the strict sense) not directly caused by humans.
    to die by an accident such as an act of God
    Coordinate term: act of God
  3. (transport) A collision or crash of a vehicle, aircraft, or other form of transportation that causes damage to the transportation involved; and sometimes injury or death to the transportation's occupants or bystanders in close proximity. (but see Usage notes)
    There was a huge accident on I5 involving 15 automobiles.
    My insurance went up after the second accident in three months.
    • 2013 July-August, Philip J. Bushnell, “Solvents, Ethanol, Car Crashes & Tolerance”, in American Scientist:
      Surprisingly, this analysis revealed that acute exposure to solvent vapors at concentrations below those associated with long-term effects appears to increase the risk of a fatal automobile accident. Furthermore, this increase in risk is comparable to the risk of death from leukemia after long-term exposure to benzene, another solvent, which has the well-known property of causing this type of cancer.
  4. Any chance event.
    • 2008, Celia Deane-Drummond, The Ethics of Nature, page 206:
      He also objects to the idea of women arising by an accident of nature, preferring the notion that they came about as a 'result of some strong mental impression', and so 'the sex of the progeny would have been settled by the decision of the progenitor'.
  6. (uncountable) Chance; random chance.
    • c.1861-1863, Richard Chevenix Trench, in 1888, Letters and memorials, Volume 1,
      Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident, / It is the very place God meant for thee; […]
    • 1991 Autumn, Robert M. Adams, “Montaigne”, in American Scholar, volume 60, number 4, page 589:
      And so with his writing, which he proudly said was a perfect counterpart of his life. Accident played a major part in both.
  8. Any property, fact, or relation that is the result of chance or is nonessential or nonsubstantive.
    Synonym: accidens
    Beauty is an accident.
    Lexical gaps are called accidental because their existence is by accident; it is not essential.
    • 1883, J. P. Mahaffy, Social life in Greece from Homer to Menander:
      This accident, as I call it, of Athens being situated some miles from the sea, which is rather the consequence of its being a very ancient site, […]
    • 1902, William James, “Lecture IX: Conversion”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 200:
      If they went through their growth-crisis in other faiths and other countries, although the essence of the change would be the same […], its accidents would be different.
    • 14thC, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale in The Canterbury Tales,
      These cookes how they stamp, and strain, and grind, / And turne substance into accident, / To fulfill all thy likerous talent!
    • 1677, chapter 3, in Heraclitus Christianus: or, the Man of Sorrow, page 14:
      But as to Man, all the Fruits of the Earth, all sorts of Herbs, Plants and Roots, the Fishes of the Sea, and the Birds of the Air do not suffice him, but he must disguise, vary, and sophisticate, change the substance into accident, that by such irritations as these, Nature might be provoked, and as it were necessitated.
    • 1989, Iysa A. Bello, The medieval Islamic controversy between philosophy and orthodoxy, page 55:
      Nonetheless, those who have no evidence of the impossibility of the transformation of accident into substance believe that it is death itself which will be actually transformed into a ram on the Day of Resurrection and then be slaughtered.
    • 2005, Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Medieval Islamic philosophical writings, page 175:
      It would also follow that God ought to be able to transmute genera, converting substance into accident, knowledge into ability, black into white, and sound into smell, just as he can turn the inanimate into animate […]
    • 2010, T. M. Rudavsky, Maimonides, page 142:
      nor can God effect the transmutation of substances (from accident into substance, or substance into accident, or substance without accident).
    1. (grammar) A property attached to a word, but not essential to it, such as gender, number, or case.
      • a 1799, John Parkhurst, A Hebrew and English lexicon without points, page 25
        An adjective, so called because adjectitious, or added to a substantive, denotes some quality or accident of the substantive to which it is joined […]
  10. (euphemistic) An instance of incontinence.
    • 2009, Marcia Stedron, My Roller Coaster Life as an Army Wife, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 56:
      We weren’t there long when Karin asked about our dog. When we told her Chris was in the car, she insisted we bring him up to the apartment. I rejected her offer and said he might have an accident on the carpet and I didn’t want to worry about it.
    1. Urine or feces excreted due to incontinence.
  12. (euphemistic) An unintended pregnancy.
    2. (derogatory or humorous) A person born from an unintended pregnancy.
      Taylor was our sweet little accident, and we're so glad!
  13. (geology) An irregular surface feature with no apparent cause.
  14. (geology) A sudden discontinuity of ground such as fault of great thickness, bed or lentil of unstable ground.[1]
  16. (heraldry) A point or mark which may be retained or omitted in a coat of arms.

Usage notes

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Risk management and risk mitigation experts (such as actuaries, systems engineers, and others) generally do not approve of calling motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) "accidents", because they advisedly reserve that term for things not directly caused by human recklessness or negligence. Because it is predictably obvious (and directly causal) that distracted driving (e.g., texting, IMing/DMing, videogaming, or intoxication while driving) produces MVCs, those MVCs are not "accidents". Nonetheless, among the general public, MVCs are quite often called "accidents" rather than "crashes" or "collisions", not only by idiomatic inertia but also because connotatively, it steers clear of broaching the topic of blame assignment, whereas a phrase like "he crashed" connotes blame.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱh₂d- (0 c, 32 e)

Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

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Adjective

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accident (not comparable)

  1. (transport) Designating any form of transportation involved in an accident.
    The NTSB report revealed that the accident airplane was a Cessna 172.

See also

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References

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  • Elisabetta Lonati, "Allas, the shorte throte, the tendre mouth": the sins of the mouth in The Canterbury Tales, in Thou sittest at another boke, volume 3 (2008, ISSN 1974-0603), page 253: "the cooks "turnen substance into accident" (Pd 539), transform the raw material, its natural essence, into the outward aspect by which it is known."
  • Barbara Fass Leavy, To Blight With Plague: Studies in a Literary Theme (1993), page 47:
    To turn substance into accident is to give external form to what previously was unformed, to transform spirit into matter, to reduce eternal truths to their ephemeral physical manifestations.
  1. ^ Jean-Paul Kurtz, editor (2007 May 8), “geological accident - accident géologique”, in Dictionary of Civil Engineering: English-French (EngineeringPro)‎[1], Springer Science & Business Media, →DOI, →ISBN, page 573: “A sudden discontinuity of ground such as fault of great thickness, bed or lentil of unstable ground, etc.”

Further reading

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Catalan

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin accidentem, present active participle of accidō (“happen”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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accident m (plural accidents)

  1. accident (a chance occurrence)
  2. (grammar) accident
  3. (music) accidental
  4. (logic) accident
  5. (transport) accident
  6. (geography) feature

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Dutch

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Etymology

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From Middle Dutch accident, from Middle French accident.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˌɑk.siˈdɛnt/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Hyphenation: ac‧ci‧dent
  • Rhymes: -ɛnt

Noun

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accident n (plural accidenten, diminutive accidentje n)

  1. (philosophy, theology) accidental property
  2. (now Belgium) accident

French

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Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin accidentem.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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accident m (plural accidents)

  1. accident

Usage notes

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Derived terms

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Further reading

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Latin

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Etymology 1

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Form of the verb accidō (“I fall down upon”).

Verb

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accident

  1. third-person plural future active indicative of accidō

Etymology 2

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Form of the verb accīdō (“I cut down”).

Verb

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accīdent

  1. third-person plural future active indicative of accīdō

Middle French

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Noun

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accident m (plural accidens)

  1. accident (unexpected outcome)

Old French

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Noun

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accident oblique singular, m (oblique plural accidenz or accidentz, nominative singular accidenz or accidentz, nominative plural accident)

  1. accident (chance occurrence)
  2. symptom (medical)

Descendants

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  • English: accident
  • French: accident

Romanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French accident.

Noun

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accident n (plural accidente)

  1. accident

Declension

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Declension of accident
singular plural
indefinite articulation definite articulation indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) accident accidentul (niște) accidente accidentele
genitive/dative (unui) accident accidentului (unor) accidente accidentelor
vocative accidentule accidentelor

Scots

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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accident (plural accidents)

  1. An accident; a coincidental occurrence or event.

References

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