different between accident vs accidence

English

Etymology

• First attested in the late 14th century. From Middle English, from Old French accident, from Latin accid?ns, present active participle of accid? (“happen”); from ad (“to”) + cad? (“fall”). See cadence, case. In the sense "unintended pregnancy", first attested in 1932.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?æk.s?.d?nt/, /?æk.s?.d?nt/

Noun

accident (countable and uncountable, plural accidents)

1. An unexpected event with negative consequences occurring without the intention of the one suffering the consequences.
   • c.1603, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice, I-iii,

     Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, / Of moving accidents by flood and field […]

2. (transport, vehicles) Especially, a collision or similar unintended event that causes damage or death.
3. Any chance event.
4. (uncountable) Chance.
   • c.1861-1863, Richard Chevenix Trench, in 1888, Letters and memorials, Volume 1,

     Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident, / It is the very place God meant for thee; […]
5. Any property, fact, or relation that is the result of chance or is nonessential.
   • 1883, J. P. Mahaffy, Social life in Greece from Homer to Menander,

     This accident, as I call it, of Athens being situated some miles from the sea, which is rather the consequence of its being a very ancient site, […]

6. (euphemistic) An instance of incontinence.
   • 2009, Marcia Stedron, My Roller Coaster Life as an Army Wife, Xlibris Corporation, ?ISBN, page 56:

     We weren’t there long when Karin asked about our dog. When we told her Chris was in the car, she insisted we bring him up to the apartment. I rejected her offer and said he might have an accident on the carpet and I didn’t want to worry about it.

7. (euphemistic) An unintended pregnancy.
9. (philosophy, logic) A quality or attribute in distinction from the substance, as sweetness, softness.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, page 171:

     If they went through their growth-crisis in other faiths and other countries, although the essence of the change would be the same […] , its accidents would be different.

10. (grammar) A property attached to a word, but not essential to it, such as gender, number, or case.
    • a 1799, John Parkhurst, A Hebrew and English lexicon without points, page 25

      An adjective, so called because adjectitious, or added to a substantive, denotes some quality or accident of the substantive to which it is joined […]

11. (geology) An irregular surface feature with no apparent cause.
12. (geology) A sudden discontinuity of ground such as fault of great thickness, bed or lentil of unstable ground.
13. (heraldry) A point or mark which may be retained or omitted in a coat of arms.
14. (law) casus; such unforeseen, extraordinary, extraneous interference as is out of the range of ordinary calculation.
15. (uncountable, philosophy, uncommon) Appearance, manifestation.
    • 14thC, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale in The Canterbury Tales,

      These cookes how they stamp, and strain, and grind, / And turne substance into accident, / To fulfill all thy likerous talent!

    • 1677, Heraclitus Christianus: or, the Man of Sorrow, chapter 3, page 14:

      But as to Man, all the Fruits of the Earth, all sorts of Herbs, Plants and Roots, the Fishes of the Sea, and the Birds of the Air do not suffice him, but he must disguise, vary, and sophisticate, change the substance into accident, that by such irritations as these, Nature might be provoked, and as it were necessitated.

Synonyms

• (unexpected event with negative consequences): mishap
• (unexpected event that takes place without foresight or expectation): befalling, chance, contingency, casualty; See also Thesaurus:accident
• (chance): fortune, luck; see also Thesaurus:luck
• (law): casus

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

• Elisabetta Lonati, "Allas, the shorte throte, the tendre mouth": the sins of the mouth in The Canterbury Tales, in Thou sittest at another boke, volume 3 (2008, ISSN 1974-0603), page 253: "the cooks "turnen substance into accident" (Pd 539), transform the raw material, its natural essence, into the outward aspect by which it is known."
• Barbara Fass Leavy, To Blight With Plague: Studies in a Literary Theme (1993), page 47:

  To turn substance into accident is to give external form to what previously was unformed, to transform spirit into matter, to reduce eternal truths to their ephemeral physical manifestations.

Further reading

• accident in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• accident in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• accident at OneLook Dictionary Search

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin accid?ns, present active participle of accid? (“happen”).

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /?k.si?dent/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /?k.si?den/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /ak.si?dent/

Noun

accident m (plural accidents)

1. accident (a chance occurrence)
2. (grammar) accident
3. (music) accidental
4. (logic) accident
5. (transport) accident
6. (geography) feature

Derived terms

• accidentar
• accidentogen

Related terms

• accidental

Further reading

• “accident” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “accident” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “accident” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “accident” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch accident, from Middle French accident.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??k.si?d?nt/
• Hyphenation: ac?ci?dent
• Rhymes: -?nt

Noun

accident n (plural accidenten, diminutive accidentje n)

1. (philosophy, theology) accidental property
2. (now Belgium) accident

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ak.si.d??/

Noun

accident m (plural accidents)

1. accident

Derived terms

• accident de décompression
• accident de parcours
• accident de travail/accident du travail
• accident vasculaire cérébral
• accidentel
• accidenter

Further reading

• “accident” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Etymology 1

Form of the verb accid? (“I fall down upon”).

Verb

accident

1. third-person plural future active indicative of accid?

Etymology 2

Form of the verb acc?d? (“I cut down”).

Verb

acc?dent

1. third-person plural future active indicative of acc?d?

Middle French

Noun

accident m (plural accidens)

1. accident (unexpected outcome)

Old French

Noun

accident m (oblique plural accidenz or accidentz, nominative singular accidenz or accidentz, nominative plural accident)

1. accident (chance occurrence)
2. symptom (medical)

Descendants

• English: accident
• French: accident

Romanian

Etymology

From French accident

Noun

accident n (plural accidente)

1. accident

Declension

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?aks?d?nt]

Noun

accident (plural accidents)

1. An accident; a coincidental occurence or event.

References

• Eagle, Andy, editor (2016) The Online Scots Dictionary, Scots Online.

English

Etymology

• First attested in the late 14th century.
• (grammar): First attested in the mid 15th century.
• From Latin accidentia (“accidental matters”), from accidens, present participle of accidere (“to happen”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æk.s?.d?ns/, /?æk.s?.d?ns/, /?æk.s?.d?nts/, /?æk.s?.d?nts/

Noun

accidence (countable and uncountable, plural accidences)

1. (grammar) The accidents or inflections of words; the rudiments of grammar.
   • 1627, John Brinsley, Ludus Literarius; or, The Grammar Schoole, London: John Bellamie, p. xiii,^[1]

     To teach Schollars how to bee able to reade well, and write true Orthography, in a short space. 2. To make them ready in all points of Accedence and Grammar, to answere any necessary question therein.

   • 1669, John Milton, Accedence Commenc’t Grammar (title of a Latin grammar)^[2]
   • 1871, Review of An Elementary Greek Grammar by William W. Goodwin, North American Review, Volume 112, No. 231, 1 April, 1871, p. 427,^[3]

     Our best schools send every year to college boys who know their accidence reasonably, and in some cases admirably well […]
2. The rudiments of any subject.
   • 1904, Edwin Sidney Hartland, Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance and Folklore, London: David Nutt, p. 67,^[4]

     When Franklin, playing with his kite in a thunderstorm, brought down sparks from the heavens, he was learning the accidence of that science of Electricity which has given us the Telegraph and Telephone […]

3. A book containing the first principles of grammar; (by extension) a book containing the rudiments of any subject or art.
   • 1562, Gerard Legh, The Accedence of Armorie, 1597 edition, Preface,^[5]

     And forsomuch as this treateth of blazon of Armes, and of the worthie bearers of them […] I therefore, have named this, the Accedence of Armorie […]

   • c. 1600, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV, Scene 1,^[6]

     Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence.

   • 1759, The Annual Register, p. 295,^[7]

     Two years afterwards he got part of an accidence and grammar, and about three fourths of Littleton’s dictionary. He conceived a violent passion for reading […]

   • 1895, Maud Wilder Goodwin, The Colonial Cavalier; or, Southern Life Before the Revolution, Boston: Little Brown & Co., pp. 230-231,^[8]

     Hugh Jones, a Fellow of William and Mary College, writes of his countrymen that, for the most part, they are only desirous of learning what is absolutely necessary, in the shortest way. To meet this peculiarity Mr. Jones states that he has designed a royal road to learning, consisting of a series of text-books embracing an Accidence to Christianity, an Accidence to the Mathematicks, and an Accidence to the English Tongue.

Related terms

• accident