eventuality
Americannoun
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eventualities
plural
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a contingent event; a possible occurrence or circumstance.
Rain is an eventuality to be reckoned with in planning the picnic.
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the state or fact of being eventual; contingent character.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of eventuality
Explanation
An eventuality is an event that just might happen in the future. For example, I store fresh drinking water in the basement to be prepared for several eventualities. You can see the word "event" at the beginning of eventuality. Use that as a clue to remember that an eventuality is an event that might happen — eventually. Winning the lottery, a Mars landing, finding a cure for cancer, nuclear war: these are just some of the eventualities for which we should either get ready or try to prevent. What do you think are some of the eventualities for which the team should prepare? Tripping, falling, and landing on your butt are all eventualities for which the odds will increase during the ice storm.
Vocabulary lists containing eventuality
John F. Kennedy's Address to the American People on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
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And Then There Were None
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John Lewis (1940–2020) Tribute List
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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:
My financial adviser and I have plans to discuss preparing for this eventuality.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 23, 2026
They’re gonna try and load up on as many treatments as possible, put as many things into place as they can for that eventuality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
The May 10 Substack essay that began circulating in the wake of her Instagram post did nothing to dispel that eventuality.
From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2026
It’s turned into an all too familiar ritual: college sports dancing around an eventuality, instead of proactively tackling the hardest parts head-on.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
With this in mind, I approached the National Executive Committee with the idea that we must come up with a contingency plan for just such an eventuality.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
Fully guaranteed money is protected against all three eventualities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
"So we're getting rid of that variability by making something that's across the board recognisable by your immune system that should cover you from all these eventualities ... a real big paradigm change," he said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026
Nobody wants to think about such eventualities, but it’s best to account for all possible scenarios in legal documents.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 21, 2026
“We had a very long list of ‘what ifs,’ in other words eventualities that could happen and how we would deal with them in an emergency,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2025
I just remember a period when, convinced that an apostrophe was definitely required somewhere, I would cunningly suspend a very small one immediately above the “s”, to cover all eventualities.
From "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Author
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.
