coincidence
Americannoun
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coincidences
plural
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a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance.
Our meeting in Venice was pure coincidence.
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the condition or fact of coinciding.
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an instance of this.
noun
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a chance occurrence of events remarkable either for being simultaneous or for apparently being connected
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the fact, condition, or state of coinciding
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(modifier) electronics of or relating to a circuit that produces an output pulse only when both its input terminals receive pulses within a specified interval Compare anticoincidence
coincidence gate
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of coincidence
First recorded in 1595–1605; coincid(ent) + -ence
Explanation
People love to talk about strange coincidences––like you and your mother having the same birthday, or two unrelated families named "The Martins" living next door to each other. A coincidence is something that's not planned or arranged but seems like it is. Technically, a coincidence is an occurrence of events that happen at the same time by total accident––like you and a kid from your class at school both visit the Grand Canyon on the same day. Weird. If some guy is stalking you, always running into you wherever you go, this is not a coincidence. That guy has memorized your schedule.
Vocabulary lists containing coincidence
Wonder
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"The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs
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Twelve Angry Men
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Statisticians I have consulted insist that it’s almost certainly a coincidence that those three particularly terrible months for the market happened to occur in October.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
So it’s no coincidence that Evenepoel is a multiple world and Olympic champion in the individual time trial, a pure exercise of power and efficiency.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
It is no coincidence that this describes aspects of the new LACMA.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
That can make it difficult to determine which bacteria are genuinely associated with disease, which are simply present by coincidence, and which may have protective effects.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 7, 2026
During the peak of ancient astronomy, Greek astronomical tables regularly employed zero; its symbol was the lowercase omicron, o, which looks very much like our modern-day zero, though it’s probably a coincidence.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
No exotic assumptions or rare coincidences were necessary.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 17, 2026
As many a TV detective likes to say, there are no such thing as coincidences.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
The movie takes on some formulaic thriller trappings in its final act, relying too heavily on strained coincidences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
That enigmatic response got the team at the brokerage Baird to look for coincidences between Dorsey and Satoshi.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 25, 2025
Life is just a series of dumb decisions and indecisions and coincidences that we choose to ascribe meaning to.
From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
