accident

to die by an accident such as an act of God

Coordinate term: act of God

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, / Of moving accidents by flood and field[…]

c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

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.

(law) casus; such unforeseen, extraordinary, extraneous interference as is out of the range of ordinary calculation.

There was a huge accident on I5 involving 15 automobiles.

My insurance went up after the second accident in three months.

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.

2013 July-August, Philip J. Bushnell, “Solvents, Ethanol, Car Crashes & Tolerance”, in American Scientist:

(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)

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'.

2008, Celia Deane-Drummond, The Ethics of Nature, page 206:

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; […]

And so with his writing, which he proudly said was a perfect counterpart of his life. Accident played a major part in both.

1991 Autumn, Robert M. Adams, “Montaigne”, in American Scholar, volume 60, number 4, page 589:

Beauty is an accident.

Lexical gaps are called accidental because their existence is by accident; it is not essential.

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,[…]

1883, J. P. Mahaffy, Social life in Greece from Homer to Menander:

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.

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:

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!

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.

1677, chapter 3, in Heraclitus Christianus: or, the Man of Sorrow, page 14:

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.

1989, Iysa A. Bello, The medieval Islamic controversy between philosophy and orthodoxy, page 55:

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[…]

2005, Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Medieval Islamic philosophical writings, page 175:

nor can God effect the transmutation of substances (from accident into substance, or substance into accident, or substance without accident).

2010, T. M. Rudavsky, Maimonides, page 142:

en:philosophical sense, versus essence or substance

Any property, fact, or relation that is the result of chance or is nonessential or nonsubstantive.

An adjective, so called because adjectitious, or added to a substantive, denotes some quality or accident of the substantive to which it is joined […]

a 1799, John Parkhurst, A Hebrew and English lexicon without points, page 25

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

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.

2009, Marcia Stedron, My Roller Coaster Life as an Army Wife, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 56:

(euphemistic) An instance of incontinence.

Urine or feces excreted due to incontinence.

Taylor was our sweet little accident, and we're so glad!

(derogatory or humorous) A person born from an unintended pregnancy.

(geology) An irregular surface feature with no apparent cause.

(geology) A sudden discontinuity of ground such as fault of great thickness, bed or lentil of unstable ground.

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

en-noun

accident (countable and uncountable, plural accidents)

befalling

unexpected event that takes place without foresight or expectation

transport: unintended event that causes damage

accident

logic: quality or attribute in distinction from substance

инциде́нт

military: unplanned event resulting in injury

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.


accident

The NTSB report revealed that the accident airplane was a Cessna 172.

(transport) Designating any form of transportation involved in an accident.