different between chance vs whirl

English

Alternative forms

• chaunce (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?æns/
  • (US, Canada) IPA^(key): [t????ns], [t??e?ns]
  • (Northern England, General Australian, Ireland) IPA^(key): [t??æns], [t??ans]
• IPA^(key): /t???ns/
  • (Received Pronunciation, Cockney) IPA^(key): [t????ns]
  • (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): [t????ns]
• Rhymes: -??ns, -æns

Etymology 1

From Middle English chance, cheance, chaunce, cheaunce, a borrowing from Old French chance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadere (“to fall, to die, to happen, occur”). Doublet of cadence and cadenza.

Noun

chance (countable and uncountable, plural chances)

1. (countable) An opportunity or possibility.

2. (uncountable) Random occurrence; luck.

3. (countable) The probability of something happening.

4. (countable, archaic) What befalls or happens to a person; their lot or fate.

Synonyms

• (random occurrence): fortune, hap; see also Thesaurus:luck

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

chance (not comparable)

1. Happening by chance, casual.
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, ch. VI, The Shoe Maker (Heron Book Centennial Edition)

     No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there.

Translations

Adverb

chance (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Perchance; perhaps.

Etymology 2

From Middle English chancen, chauncen, from the noun (see above).

Verb

chance (third-person singular simple present chances, present participle chancing, simple past and past participle chanced)

1. (archaic, intransitive) To happen by chance, to occur.

   • if a bird's nest chance to be before thee

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XV, Practical — Devotional

     Once […] it chanced that Geoffrey Riddell Bishop of Ely, a Prelate rather troublesome to our Abbot, made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certain edifices going on at Glemsford.

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII

     Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"—"quite troublesome."

2. (archaic, transitive) To befall; to happen to.
3. To try or risk.

   Shall we carry the umbrella, or chance a rainstorm?

   • 1890, William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes

     He does chance it in stocks, but he's always played on the square, if you call stocks gambling.

4. To discover something by chance.

5. (Belize) To rob, cheat or swindle someone.

Synonyms

• (to happen) come to pass, occur, transpire; See also Thesaurus:happen
• (to happen to)
• (to try) test
• (to discover something) come across, come on, come upon, encounter, stumble upon
• (to cheat someone) deceive, fool, trick; See also Thesaurus:deceive

Derived terms

• bechance
• chance on
• chance one's arm
• chance upon

Translations

References

• chance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “chance”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance, from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cad? (“I fall, I die”).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [????s?]

Noun

chance c (singular definite chancen, plural indefinite chancer)

1. A chance

Antonyms

• risiko

French

Etymology

From Old French chance, cheance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cad?ns, from cad? (“I fall, I die”). Doublet of cadence, borrowed from Italian.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???s/
• Rhymes: -??s

Noun

chance f (plural chances)

1. chance
2. luck

Antonyms

• adversité
• guigne (familiar)
• malchance
• malheur

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Dutch: kans
• ? Dutch: sjans
• ? German: Chance
• ? Persian: ????? (šâns)
• ? Polish: szansa
• ? Romanian: ?ans?
• ? Turkish: ?ans

Related terms

• choir

Further reading

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

Italian

Alternative forms

• scians

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance. Doublet of cadenza.

Noun

chance f (invariable)

1. chance (possibility of a certain outcome)

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cad?ns, from cad? (“I fall, I die”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?an.ts?/

Noun

chance f (oblique plural chances, nominative singular chance, nominative plural chances)

1. chance; fate
2. (rare) a throw of a die

Related terms

• cheoir

Descendants

• ? English: chance
  • Japanese: ???? (chansu) (borrowed)
• French: chance
  • ? Danish: chance
  • ? Italian: chance
  • ? Portuguese: chance
  • ? Romanian: ?ans?
  • ? Spanish: chance
  • ? Turkish: ?ans

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (cheance, supplement)
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (chance)
• chance on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance. Doublet of cadência.

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /????.s?/
• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /????.si/, [????.s??]

Noun

chance f (plural chances)

1. probability
2. chance, opportunity

   Synonym: oportunidade

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance or, in Mexico, from English chance. Doublet of cadencia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /?t??an?e/, [?t??ãn?.?e]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America) /?t??anse/, [?t??ãn.se]

Noun

chance m or f (plural chances)

1. chance

Conjunction

chance

1. (Mexico) maybe, perchance, perhaps or possibly

   Synonyms: a lo mejor, quizá, quizás, tal vez

English

Etymology

From Middle English whirlen, contracted from earlier *whervelen, possibly from Old English *hweorflian, frequentative form of Old English hweorfan (“to turn”), itself from Proto-Germanic *hwerban? (“turn”); or perhaps from Old Norse hvirfla (“to go round, spin”). Cognate with Dutch wervelen (“to whirl, swirl”), German wirbeln (“to whirl, swirl”), Danish hvirvle (“to whirl”), Swedish virvla (older spelling hvirfla), Albanian vorbull (“a whirl”). Related to whirr and wharve.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /w??l/ or IPA^(key): /???l/ (some Welsh and English accents)
• (US) enPR: wûrl, IPA^(key): /w?l/ or enPR: hwûrl, IPA^(key): /??l/
• (Scotland, Ireland) IPA^(key): /???(??)l/

Rhymes: -??(r)l

• Homophone: whorl

Verb

whirl (third-person singular simple present whirls, present participle whirling, simple past and past participle whirled)

1. (intransitive) To rotate, revolve, spin or turn rapidly.

   • He whirls his sword around without delay.

   • 1900, L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

     The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.

2. (intransitive) To have a sensation of spinning or reeling.

3. (transitive) To make something or someone whirl.

4. (transitive) To remove or carry quickly with, or as with, a revolving motion; to snatch.
   • The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into folly.

Translations

Noun

whirl (plural whirls)

1. An act of whirling.

   She gave the top a whirl and it spun across the floor.

2. Something that whirls.
3. A confused tumult.
4. A rapid series of events.

   My life is one social whirl.

5. Dizziness or giddiness.

   My mind was in a whirl.

6. (informal) (usually following “give”) A brief experiment or trial.

   OK, let's give it a whirl.

Derived terms

• awhirl
• whirligig
• whirlpool

Translations