[irreg. f. L. fortuitus: see FORTUITOUS and -ITY.] Fortuitous character, fortuitousness; accident, chance; an accidental occurrence. Occasionally used for: Appearance of fortuitousness or unstudiedness.
a. 1747. D. Forbes, Incredulity, 80. The only question which the adversaries to Providence have to answer, is, How they can be sure, that those deserved judgments were the effect of mere fortuity, without the least intervention on the part of the Lord of the universe?
1790. Paley, Horæ Paul., Wks. 1825, III. 194. A contexture of forgeries confirming and falling in with one another by a species of fortuity of which I know no example.
1829. I. Taylor, Enthus., vi. (1867), 110. It is by the fortuities of life that the religious enthusiast is deluded: under a guise stolen from piety, Chance is his divinity.
1860. Reade, Cloister & H., II. 245. One of the company, by some immense fortuity, could read.
1860. Geo. Eliot, Mill on Fl., I. vii. She looks down pensively at her bracelets, and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied fortuity which would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more in a calm and healthy state.
1885. J. Martineau, Types Eth. Th. (1886), II. II. i. 372. The theory is burdened with nothing that might not happen in a universe of fortuity.
