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accident

Pronunciation: /ˈaksɪd(ə)nt/
Translate accident | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of accident

noun

  • 1an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury:he had an accident at the factory [mass noun]:if you are unable to work owing to accident or sickness
  • a crash involving road or other vehicles:four people were killed in a road accident
  • euphemistic an incidence of incontinence by a child or animal: he had a little accident, but I washed his shorts out
  • 2an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause:the pregnancy was an accident it is no accident that Manchester has produced more than its fair share of professional comics
  • [mass noun] the working of fortune; chance:members belong to the House of Lords through hereditary right or accident of birth
  • 3 Philosophy (in Aristotelian thought) a property of a thing which is not essential to its nature.

Phrases

accident and emergency

British a hospital department concerned with the provision of immediate treatment to people who are seriously injured in an accident or who are suddenly taken seriously ill.

an accident waiting to happen

informal a potentially disastrous situation, typically caused by negligent or faulty procedures: people living near the site where the boy was crushed to death said it was an accident waiting to happen

accidents will happen in the best regulated families

proverb however careful you try to be, it is inevitable that some unfortunate or unforeseen events will occur:problems like these should not occur, but accidents will happen

by accident

unintentionally; by chance:she didn’t get where she is today by accident nomadic hunters probably ended up on the new continent by accident

without accident

safely:he was able to stop the train without accident

Origin:

late Middle English (in the general sense 'an event'): via Old French from Latin accident- 'happening', from the verb accidere, from ad- 'towards, to' + cadere 'to fall'

accident in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of accident in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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