incidentally

American  

[in-si-den-tl-ee, -dent-lee] / ˌɪn sɪˈdɛn tl i, -ˈdɛnt li /

adverb

1. apart or aside from the main subject of attention, discussion, etc.; by the way; parenthetically.

   Incidentally, while you were waiting for the officer to run your registration through the system, did you notice if the post office was open?

2. in the course of something else, and not intentionally.

   The bone fractures were discovered only incidentally, during an unrelated CT scan of her chest.

---

incidentally British  

/ ˌɪnsɪˈdɛntəlɪ /

adverb

1. as a subordinate or chance occurrence

2. (sentence modifier) by the way

---

Etymology

Origin of incidentally

First recorded in 1655–65; incidental + -ly

Example Sentences

But I also hear, incidentally, that the vetting process was "rushed" and "slapdash."

From BBC

And, almost incidentally, this was in February 2011 - putting more holes in Andrew's assurances that he'd cut off any contact with Epstein the previous year.

From BBC

The tag was also, incidentally, a play on “The Blue Dahlia,” a 1946 movie written by Raymond Chandler and starring Veronica Lake as a plucky drifter who helps the hero track down his wife’s murderer.

From The Wall Street Journal

Pancreatic cancer is pernicious, but five-year survival has increased three-fold since the 1990s to 13%, which the report attributes to more cancers being detected incidentally at earlier stages when they are easier to treat.

From The Wall Street Journal

The size of the 20-year-old cohort in Japan presenting itself to the workforce and, incidentally, the military, is half of what it was in 1948.

From Barron's

Related Words

• casually
• remotely