"accident of birth" meaning in English

See accident of birth in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-accident of birth.ogg Forms: accidents of birth [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|accidents of birth}} accident of birth (plural accidents of birth)
  1. (idiomatic) A fact, situation, or personal characteristic, which may be desirable or undesirable, resulting from the circumstances into which a person was born, and which is therefore entirely beyond their control. Tags: idiomatic Translations (situation or characteristic resulting from birth): syntymävamma [negative] (Finnish), syntymälahja [positive] (Finnish), acidente de percurso (Portuguese)

Inflected forms

{
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    {
      "form": "accidents of birth",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  "head_templates": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1899, Charles W. Chesnutt, “Uncle Wellington's Wives”, in The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories:",
          "text": "[H]e said to himself that he was a very good-looking man, and could have adorned a much higher sphere in life than that in which the accident of birth had placed him.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 4, in A Texas Ranger:",
          "text": "\"You're no brother of mine,\" she broke in. \"At most it is an accident of birth I disown. I'll have no relationship with you of any sort.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1915, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 9, in Heart of the Sunset:",
          "text": "An accident of birth had made him a citizen of the United States—his father having owned a ranch which lay north instead of south of the Rio Grande.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A fact, situation, or personal characteristic, which may be desirable or undesirable, resulting from the circumstances into which a person was born, and which is therefore entirely beyond their control."
      ],
      "id": "en-accident_of_birth-en-noun-oUu-wwbJ",
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        [
          "characteristic",
          "characteristic"
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        [
          "desirable",
          "desirable"
        ],
        [
          "undesirable",
          "undesirable"
        ],
        [
          "circumstance",
          "circumstance"
        ],
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          "control",
          "control"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A fact, situation, or personal characteristic, which may be desirable or undesirable, resulting from the circumstances into which a person was born, and which is therefore entirely beyond their control."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "situation or characteristic resulting from birth",
          "tags": [
            "negative"
          ],
          "word": "syntymävamma"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "situation or characteristic resulting from birth",
          "tags": [
            "positive"
          ],
          "word": "syntymälahja"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "situation or characteristic resulting from birth",
          "word": "acidente de percurso"
        }
      ]
    }
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      "audio": "en-au-accident of birth.ogg",
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  "word": "accident of birth"
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{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "accidents of birth",
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
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        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with Portuguese translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1899, Charles W. Chesnutt, “Uncle Wellington's Wives”, in The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories:",
          "text": "[H]e said to himself that he was a very good-looking man, and could have adorned a much higher sphere in life than that in which the accident of birth had placed him.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 4, in A Texas Ranger:",
          "text": "\"You're no brother of mine,\" she broke in. \"At most it is an accident of birth I disown. I'll have no relationship with you of any sort.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1915, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 9, in Heart of the Sunset:",
          "text": "An accident of birth had made him a citizen of the United States—his father having owned a ranch which lay north instead of south of the Rio Grande.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A fact, situation, or personal characteristic, which may be desirable or undesirable, resulting from the circumstances into which a person was born, and which is therefore entirely beyond their control."
      ],
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          "fact",
          "fact"
        ],
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        [
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        [
          "characteristic",
          "characteristic"
        ],
        [
          "desirable",
          "desirable"
        ],
        [
          "undesirable",
          "undesirable"
        ],
        [
          "circumstance",
          "circumstance"
        ],
        [
          "control",
          "control"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A fact, situation, or personal characteristic, which may be desirable or undesirable, resulting from the circumstances into which a person was born, and which is therefore entirely beyond their control."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
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  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "situation or characteristic resulting from birth",
      "tags": [
        "negative"
      ],
      "word": "syntymävamma"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "situation or characteristic resulting from birth",
      "tags": [
        "positive"
      ],
      "word": "syntymälahja"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "situation or characteristic resulting from birth",
      "word": "acidente de percurso"
    }
  ],
  "word": "accident of birth"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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