Lexic.us

Definition of Chance

1. Adjective. Occurring or appearing or singled out by chance. "A chance occurrence"

2. Verb. Be the case by chance. "I chanced to meet my old friend in the street"

3. Noun. A possibility due to a favorable combination of circumstances. "Now is your chance"

4. Verb. Take a risk in the hope of a favorable outcome. "When you buy these stocks you are gambling"

5. Noun. An unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another. "We ran into each other by pure chance"

6. Verb. Come upon, as if by accident; meet with. "They chance the money in the closet"; "She chanced upon an interesting book in the bookstore the other day"

7. Noun. A risk involving danger. "You take a chance when you let her drive"

8. Noun. A measure of how likely it is that some event will occur; a number expressing the ratio of favorable cases to the whole number of cases possible. "The probability that an unbiased coin will fall with the head up is 0.5"

9. Noun. The possibility of future success. "His prospects as a writer are excellent"

Definition of Chance

1. n. A supposed material or psychical agent or mode of activity other than a force, law, or purpose; fortune; fate; -- in this sense often personified.

2. v. i. To happen, come, or arrive, without design or expectation.

3. v. t. To take the chances of; to venture upon; -- usually with it as object.

4. a. Happening by chance; casual.

5. adv. By chance; perchance.

Definition of Chance

1. Proper noun. (given name male from=English), an American pet form of Chauncey, in modern usage also associated with the word chance. ¹

2. Noun. An opportunity or possibility. ¹

3. Noun. Random occurrence; luck. ¹

4. Noun. The probability of something happening. ¹

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

6. Verb. To try or risk. ¹

7. Verb. To discover something by chance. ¹

8. Adjective. (rare) happening by chance, casual ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Chance

1. to risk [v CHANCED, CHANCING, CHANCES] - See also: risk

Medical Definition of Chance

1. G.Q., 20th century British radiologist. See: Chance fracture. (05 Mar 2000)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Chance

Champ Champagne Champagne-Ardenne Champaign Champions League Champlain Champollion Champs Elysees Champy Champy's fixative

Chan Chana Chanaan Chanarin Chance Chance card Chance cards Chancellor of the Exchequer Chancellorsville Chancy

Chandi Chandigarh Chandler Chandler syndrome Chandleresque Chandlerish Chandlerism Chandpur District Chandra

Literary usage of Chance

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James (1896)
"But the word ' chance,' with its singular negativity, is just the word for this ... For him, he confesses that they are no better than mere chance would be. ..."

2. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle, Frank Hesketh Peters (1886)
"i's attained by learning, or the formation of habits, or any other kind of training, or comes by some divine dispensation or even by chance. ..."

3. War and peace by Leo Tolstoy, Sergej Prokof'ev, Lev Tolstoj, Mira Mendelson-Prokofieva, Valerij Gerg'ev, Graham Vick, Humphrey Burton, Aleksandr Gergalov, Elena Prokina, Gegam Gregoriam, Olga Borodina, Jurij Marusin, Nikolaj Okhotnikov, Vasilij Gerelo, Irina Bogatjeva, (1904)
"... freak of chance no one sees it. His part is not yet played out. The man who ten years back, and one year later, was looked on as a miscreant outside the ..."

4. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury by Thomas ( Hobbes (1841)
"But the third way of bringing things to pass, distinct from necessity and chance, namely, freewill, is a thing that never was mentioned amongst them, ..."

Other Resources: