Accidental

Quick meaning: Accidental is an adjective meaning Pertaining to accident and not essence; thus, inessential; incidental; secondary.

Meaning

Pertaining to accident and not essence; thus, inessential; incidental; secondary.

More Meanings

1. (music) Adjusted by one or two semitones, in temporary departure from the key signature.
2. Occurring sometimes, by chance; occasional.
3. Happening by chance, or unexpectedly; taking place not according to the usual course of things; by accident, unintentional.
4. (geometry) Being a double point with two distinct tangent planes in 4-dimensional projective space.
5. A property which is not essential; a nonessential; anything happening accidentally.
6. (music) A sharp, flat, or natural, occurring not at the commencement of a piece of music as the signature, but before a particular note.
7. (painting, plural only) Those fortuitous effects produced by luminous rays falling on certain objects so that some parts stand forth in abnormal brightness and other parts are cast into a deep shadow.

Example Sentences

accidental death

accidental damage

entirely accidental

The discovery was purely accidental.

Word Forms

• accidentall
• accidentals

Synonyms for accidental

Depending on context, synonyms include circumstantial, incidental, adventitious, casual, contingent, fortuitous.

Antonyms for accidental

Common opposites include inevitable, impossible, intentional.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include casual, chance, adventitious, extrinsic, inadvertent, unplanned.

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