by chance

English

Prepositional phrase

by chance

1. Unexpectedly, accidentally; without foreplanning.

   I stumbled across the exit by chance.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 16, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 75:

     [...] Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg.

2. Possibly; perhaps.

   Synonym: by any chance

   Are you by chance looking for the exit?

   • 2007 January 24, Eric Asimov, “Quiet Cover for a Vital Brew”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     If by chance you notice the fine, almost sweet maltiness of the aroma, and the brisk, dry, mineral quality of the flavors, even better.

Derived terms

• Come By Chance

Translations

unexpected(ly); accidental(ly)

• Arabic: صُدْفَةً (ar) (ṣudfatan), بِصُدْفَة (biṣudfa)

  South Levantine Arabic: بالصدفة

• Belarusian: выпадко́ва (vypadkóva)
• Bulgarian: случа́йно (bg) (slučájno)
• Catalan: per atzar, per casualitat (ca), casualment (ca)
• Cebuano: salagma
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 碰巧 (zh) (pèngqiǎo), 湊巧 / 凑巧 (zh) (còuqiǎo), 恰巧 (zh) (qiàqiǎo), 剛好 / 刚好 (zh) (gānghǎo), 偶然 (zh) (ǒurán)

• Czech: náhodou (cs)
• Danish: tilfældigt
• Dutch: toevallig (nl)
• Esperanto: okaze, hazarde
• Finnish: sattumalta (fi), sattumoisin (fi)
• French: d'aventure (fr), par hasard (fr), par rencontre (fr)
• German: zufällig (de), von ungefähr
• Greek: τυχαία (el) (tychaía)
• Hungarian: véletlenül (hu)
• Ido: hazarde (io)
• Italian: per caso (it), casualmente (it)
• Japanese: 偶然 (ja) (ぐうぜん, gūzen)
• Korean: 우연히 (ko) (uyeonhi)
• Latin: fortuītō, casu (la), temere (la)
• Macedonian: случајно (slučajno)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tilfeldigvis

  Nynorsk: tilfeldigvis

• Persian: اتفاقاً (fa) (ettefâqan)
• Polish: przypadkowo (pl), przypadkiem (pl)
• Portuguese: por acaso, casualmente (pt)
• Romanian: din întâmplare, din noroc
• Russian: случа́йно (ru) (slučájno)
• Scottish Gaelic: le tuiteamas
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: слу̏ча̄јно

  Roman: slȕčājno (sh)

• Slovak: náhodou
• Slovene: slučajno
• Spanish: por casualidad, de casualidad, con casualidad (Americanism), casualmente (es), por incidencia
• Swahili: kwa nasibu
• Swedish: av en slump
• Turkish: şans eseri
• Ukrainian: випадко́во (vypadkóvo)
• Urdu: اچانک (aćānak), اچانک سے (aćānak sē)
• Vietnamese: tình cờ (vi)
• Walloon: d' astcheyance (wa)

by any chance — see by any chance