by accident
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.71 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
Accidentally; unintentionally; without meaning to; as the result of an event not expected, aided, or willingly planned.
adv
As the result of some undesigned, unintended, unrelated, natural, or random occurrence; as the unexpected and unforeseen result of formerly unrelated factors.
adj
Accidental; as the result of some unforeseen happening or series of events; unexpected; resulting from an event without the foresight, expectation, aid, or design of the person by whose agency it was caused; unintentional.
Example Sentences
- "Sorry. I knocked over the vase by accident."
- "The car got totaled by accident; a giant snowdrift fell off the church roof."
- "The only way that project still exists today is by accident; I thought we closed it years ago."
- "The scholar thinks the quote and the parable were spoken on different occasions and only by accident were brought together here."
- "I hadn't seen her for years, but I ran into her by accident at the store."
- "She overheard the information by accident."
Inflected Forms
more by accident (comparative)
most by accident (superlative)