[a. Fr. accident:—L. accidens, -ent-, sb. properly pr. pple. of accid-ĕre to fall, to happen.] As in many other adopted words, the historical order in which the senses appear in Eng. does not correspond to their logical development, a fact still more noticeable in the derivatives.
I. Anything that happens.
1. † a. An occurrence, incident, event. Obs. b. Anything that happens without foresight or expectation; an unusual event, which proceeds from some unknown cause, or is an unusual effect of a known cause; a casualty, a contingency. The chapter of accidents: the unforeseen course of events. c. esp. An unfortunate event, a disaster, a mishap.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, III. 918. This accident so petous was to here.
1483. Caxton, Cato, k vi. By some accidentes and wantynges of nature thauncyent retournen and becomen as chyldren.
1571. Q. Elizabeth, in Ellis’s Orig. Lett., II. 189. III. 1. You maie well gesse, by the accidentes of the time, whie I have not made anie answer.
1604. Shaks., Oth., I. iii. 135. I spoke … Of mouing Accidents by Flood and Field.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah Sight, II. 63. The most memorable Accident in this place, was the Idolatry of the Israelites to Baal-peor.
1688. Dryden, Brit. Rediv., 183. No future ills nor accidents appear, To sully and pollute the sacred infant’s year.
1702. Eng. Theophrastus, 230. The wisest councils may be discomposed by the smallest accidents.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone Lightho., § 117. In the progress of the work we should lie so widely open to accidents.
1824–8. Landor, Imag. Conv. (1846), 453. Him I would call the powerful one, who … turns to good account the worst accidents of his fortune.
1871. H. Lee, Miss Barrington, I. xxi. 299. Leaving time to fight for them, and putting their trust in the chapter of accidents.
1879. Carpenter, Ment. Phys., II. xii. 504. He was led to the discovery … by a series of happy accidents.
1882. Daily News, 10 July, 3/6. Serious railway accident: thirty persons injured.
Mod. ‘Insure your life against accidents.’
2. abstractly, Chance, fortune. (By accident = Fr. par accident (14th c.), L. per accidens.)
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, xxviii. 110. Hir deth naturalle oughte not to hauen comen yet of longe tyme, but by accydente and harde fortune.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., V. v. 278. Consider Sir, the chance of Warre, the day Was yours by accident.
1756. C. Lucas, On Waters, III. 141. The good or ill they do depend alike upon accident.
1788. Johnson, Lett., I. cxiv. 239. Nature probably has some part in human characters and accident has some part.
1876. Freeman, Norm. Conq., I. App. 628. William, whether by accident or by design, was not admitted.
† 3. Med. An occurring symptom; esp. an unfavorable symptom. Obs.
1563. T. Gale, Antidotarie, II. 23. Thys Vnguent … dothe … remoue diuers accidentes and sicknesses.
1622. Bacon, Henry VII., 9. There began … a disease then new: which of the Accidents and manner thereof they called the Sweating-sicknesse.
1671. Milton, Samson, 612. Oh, that torment … must secret passage find To the inmost mind, There exercise all his fierce accidents.
† 4. A casual appearance or effect, a phenomenon. Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Clerkes T., 551. Non accident for noon adversité Was seyn in hir.
1635. N. Carpenter, Geogr. Del., I. x. 220. The Inhabitants of a Right Spheare in respect of the heauens haue the same accidents.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, i. (1723), 24. These Fossil Shells are attended with the ordinary accidents of the marine ones, ex. gr. they sometimes grow to one another.
1765. Harris, Three Treat., II. ii. 66. Music may imitate the Glidings, Murmurings, Tossings, Roarings, and other Accidents of water.
5. An irregular feature in a landscape; an undulation.
c. 1870. Lowell, Poet. Wks. (1879), 391. Accidents of open green, Sprinkled with loose slabs square and gray.
1878. in 19th Cent., 42. Taking advantage of every accident of the ground to conceal himself.
II. That which is present by chance, and therefore non-essential.
6. Logic. A property or quality not essential to our conception of a substance; an attribute. Applied especially in Scholastic Theology to the material qualities remaining in the sacramental bread and wine after transubstantiation; the essence being alleged to be changed, though the accidents remained the same.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Eng. Wks. (1880), 466. No man durste seye til nou þat accident is goddis body, for þis newe word may haue no ground.
1413. Lydgate, Pylg. Sowle (1483), IV. xxvi. 71. Quantite is an accident only appropred to bodyly thynges.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 439/3. Whan the breed is conuerted into the precious body of our lord the accidentes abyden … whytnesse, roundenesse and sauoure.
1561. T. N[orton], Calvin’s Inst. (1634), I. xiii. 56. Hee sticketh not to faigne new accidents in God.
1656. trans. Hobbes’s Elem. Philos. (1839), 104. Wherefore, I define an accident to be the manner of our conception of body.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., xiii. 45. But I demand, Whether is it less Idolatry to adore the Accidents of the Bread … or the Bread it self?
1765. Tucker, Lt. of Nat., I. 17. Disposition, configuration, and motion, are … accidents in ancient dialect, or modifications according to modern philosophers.
1846. Mill, Logic, I. vii. § 8. 181. Inseparable accidents are properties which are universal to the species but not necessary to it…. Separable Accidents are those which are found in point of fact to be sometimes absent from the species.
1872. O. Shipley, Gloss. Eccl. Terms, 179. Elements, the English equivalent term for the accidents after consecration.
7. Hence, by extension, Any accidental or non-essential accompaniment, quality, or property; an accessory, a non-essential.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel. (1651), I. i. III. ii. 31. Old age, from which natural melancholy is almost an inseparable accident.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 6. We had also a third design in our voyage, though it may be esteemed an accident to the rest.
1837. Disraeli, Venetia (1871), I. i. 2. With all the brilliant accidents of birth, and beauty, and fortune.
1843. Kingsley, Lett. (1878), I. 104. Eternity is really his home, and Time but an accident to him.
8. Heraldry. An additional point or mark that may be retained or omitted in a coat of arms.
1610. Gwillim, Heraldry (1660), I. iii. 15. I call those notes or marks, Accidents of Armes, that … may be annexed unto them, or taken from them, their substance still remaining.
† 9. Grammar. pl. (L. accidentia, Quintil.) The changes to which words are subject, in accordance with the relations in which they are used; the expression of the phenomena of gender, number, case, mood, tense, etc. Obs. replaced by ACCIDENCE.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (1869), 182. Not changing one word for another, by their accidents or cases.
1612. Brinsley, Posing of the Parts (1669), 1. The Accidents; that is, the things belonging to the parts of speech.
