incident

American  

[in-si-duhnt] / ˈɪn sɪ dənt /

noun

• incidents
  plural

1. an individual occurrence or event.

   Synonyms:

   happening

2. a distinct piece of action, or an episode, as in a story or play.

3. something that occurs casually in connection with something else.

4. something appertaining or attaching to something else.

5. an occurrence of seemingly minor importance, especially involving nations or factions between which relations are strained and sensitive, that can lead to serious consequences, as an outbreak of hostilities or a war.

   border incident; international incident.

6. an embarrassing occurrence, especially of a social nature.

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adjective

1. likely or apt to happen (usually followed byto ).

2. naturally appertaining.

   hardships incident to the life of an explorer.

3. conjoined or attaching, especially as subordinate to a principal thing.

4. falling or striking on something, as light rays.

incident British  

/ ˈɪnsɪdənt /

noun

1. a distinct or definite occurrence; event

2. a minor, subsidiary, or related event or action

3. a relatively insignificant event that might have serious consequences, esp in international politics

4. a public disturbance

   the police had reports of an incident outside a pub

5. the occurrence of something interesting or exciting

   the trip was not without incident

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adjective

1. related (to) or dependent (on)

2. having a subsidiary or minor relationship (with)

3. (esp of a beam of light or particles) arriving at or striking a surface

   incident electrons

Synonym Usage

See event.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonincident
  noun
• incidentless
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• incidents
  plural

Etymology

Origin of incident

First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin incident- (stem of incidēns “a happening,” noun use of present participle of Latin verb incidere “to fall upon, befall”), equivalent to Latin in- in- ² + -cid- (combining form of cad- “fall”) + -ent- -ent; see cadenza

Explanation

An incident refers to a particular happening, sometimes criminal but always noteworthy. If there was a food fight in the cafeteria, an e-mail might be sent to the parents of all students telling of the incident at school. The word incident is quite vague. It can refer to a humorous occurrence or a violent one, something that disturbed one's routine or something unusual that happened. If a child screams in a library, it's not that unusual, but if an adult does, that's an incident! As an adjective, incident is used in the field of physics to describe particles or radiation that fall on a surface. The incident light showed how dirty the windows were.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

incident incidents

The strike hit jet fuel facilities at the airfield, three officials with knowledge of the incident said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026

But even Hugging Face, a company of 200 employees which is now set to be acquired by Nvidia for almost $13bn, has taken a droll tone over the already infamous incident.

From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026

Marine Corps and a helicopter accident investigation instructor for USC’s Aviation Safety and Security Program, said news helicopters will often spend time hovering over an incident, sometimes at a low altitude.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026

That brings me back to the incident many years ago, as I stood in the Russian woods with my friend, underdressed and with my teeth beginning to chatter.

From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2026

One unforgettable incident with the electric fence illustrates his persistence.

From "Woodsong" by Gary Paulsen

AI titans Anthropic, OpenAI and Google - the tech companies behind Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini, respectively - have also disclosed instances of security breaches or incidents in which their chatbots were used for "malicious activity".

From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026

Hyrox’s co-founder released a statement on Instagram apologizing for not taking action during the race and stating that new rules and procedures were in place to prevent future incidents.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

“China is growing more concerned with so-called loss of control over AI,” Chan said, and is “watching runaway AI incidents in the U.S. very closely, like the Hugging Face incident.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

"He was completely healthy, but the road was blocked and he died on the way. There are multiple incidents just like this."

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

"There have been some incidents lately," Tía Carmen says in a quiet voice that does not brook contradiction.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

Related Words

• circumstance
• episode
• event
• fact
• matter
• scene