chance

Roget category 156

1. Words expressing abstract relations
› 1.8. Causation
›› 1.8.1. Constancy of sequence in events

#156. [Absence of assignable cause.] Chance

noun

chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc^†, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit — fate etc. (necessity) 601 — equal chance — lottery — tombola^† — toss up etc. 621 — turn of the table, turn of the cards — hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate — cast of the dice, throw of the dice — heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune — sortes^†, sortes Virgilianae^†.
probability, possibility, odds — long odds, run of luck — accidentalness — main chance, odds on, favorable odds.
contingency, dependence (uncertainty) 475 — situation (circumstance) 8.
statistics, theory of Probabilities, theory of Chances — bookmaking — assurance — speculation, gaming etc. 621.

verb

chance, hap, turn up — fall to one's lot — be one's fate etc. 601 — stumble on light upon — take one's chance etc. 621.

adjective

casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate — random, statistical — possible etc. 470 — unintentional etc. 621.

adverb

by chance, accidentally, by accident — casually — perchance etc. (possibly) 470 — for aught one knows — as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it — as it may be, as it may chance, as it may turn up, as it may happen — as the case may be.

phrase

grasps the skirts of happy chance" [Tennyson]; the accident of an accident" [Lord Thurlow]. There but for the grace of God go I"

The content on this page comes straight from Project Gutenberg Etext of Roget's Thesaurus No. Two, which consists of the acclaimed work by Peter Mark Roget augmented with more recent material. Some changes were made to the formatting for improved readability.

Bold numbers signify related Roget categories. A dagger symbol (†) indicates archaic words and expressions no longer in common use.

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