happenstance
Americannoun
noun
-
chance
-
a chance occurrence
Etymology
Origin of happenstance
First recorded in 1895–1900; happen + (circum)stance
Explanation
A happenstance is a coincidental event. If you call your brother on the phone, that's intentional. If you bump into him in a restaurant, it's happenstance. Happenstance is a combination of the words, happen and circumstance. Whereas circumstances are the conditions that surround an event, happenstance is the event itself. If you have no food at home so you go out to eat and sit next to a charming person who you end up marrying, your meeting was happenstance and your being hungry and having no food at home were the circumstances.
Vocabulary lists containing happenstance
Portmanteaus: Vocab Mash-Ups
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The Things They Carried
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This Week In Culture: Current Events Vocab for October 24–30, 2020
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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.
One posits the existence of billions of universes, arguing that happenstance alone accounts for the improbability of our inhabiting this one.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026
Fun fact: That Post-it Notes were originally yellow was happenstance, too; that’s the color scrap paper the lab next door had available.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 4, 2026
Many of Burns’ works do, purely by happenstance.
From Salon • Nov. 15, 2025
And that’s pretty much how my life has been, all just happenstance.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 21, 2025
Partly by happenstance, the U.S. geneticist James Neel and the U.S. anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon flew into Yanomami country in the midst of the epidemic.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
