a. Obs. or arch. [f. prec. + -ABLE.] Happening by chance, subject to chance, casual, accidental, fortuitous.
1549. Cheke, Hurt Sedit. (1641), 56. Where things be measured by chanceable disorder, rather then by necessary vse.
a. 1628. F. Greville, Sidney (1652), 15. The chanceable arrivall of Euarchus.
1656. Finett, For. Ambass., 14. It might be interpreted as chanceable, and not of design.
1881. Duffield, Don Quix., II. 437. Foul-mouthed babblers … [who] in a chanceable way divulge new paths for [the] pursuit [of vice].
b. Non-essential, subsidiary; = ACCIDENTAL 3, 4.
c. 1550. Cheke, Matt. xvi. 68. Reason … thinketh pleasuer a chanceable thing to honestee.
¶ quasi-adv.: By chance, casually.
1581. Sidney, Def. Poesie (1622), 503. Wordes as they chanceable fall from the mouth.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. xiv. 183. Some one pastor chanceable coming to that parish for the time.
Hence Chanceableness, Chanceably adv.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 160 b. All chaunceablenesse of fortune.
1672. H. More, Brief Reply, 65. The sudden surprisedness, or inevitable chanceableness of the mistake.
1559. W. Baldwin, in Mirr. for Mag. (1563), E iv b. Chaunceably slayne with a piece of ordynaunce.
1579. Fulke, Refut. Rastel, 732. Comming in chaunceably or curiously.
1601. F. Godwin, Bps. of Eng., 34. The king … being chaunceably slain by the glaunce of an arrow.
