"on the off chance" meaning in English

See on the off chance in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adverb

Etymology: From off chance. Etymology templates: {{m|en|off chance}} off chance Head templates: {{head|en|adverb}} on the off chance
  1. Hoping that (something is the case), even if it is unlikely. Synonyms: on the off-chance
    Sense id: en-on_the_off_chance-en-adv-Wc988tfL Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for on the off chance meaning in English (0.7kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "off chance"
      },
      "expansion": "off chance",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From off chance.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adverb"
      },
      "expansion": "on the off chance",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Hoping that (something is the case), even if it is unlikely."
      ],
      "id": "en-on_the_off_chance-en-adv-Wc988tfL",
      "links": [
        [
          "Hoping",
          "hope"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "on the off-chance"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "on the off chance"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "off chance"
      },
      "expansion": "off chance",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From off chance.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adverb"
      },
      "expansion": "on the off chance",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adverbs",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Hoping that (something is the case), even if it is unlikely."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Hoping",
          "hope"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "on the off-chance"
    }
  ],
  "word": "on the off chance"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.