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.

---

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

---

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

But it’s rare for hackers to get a hold of a playable version of the game, which might have happened in the “Grand Theft Auto” incident, said Sanjay Madhav, a technology professor at USC.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026

Sgt Luis Antony, from South Wales Police, said the victim had continued to be impacted by the incident.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

Now, Root will speak to the media on Tuesday to address the fallout from the Carse incident.

From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026

"The Hawk Fire is a very dynamic incident for us as it's being driven by the winds. The wind-driven fires move very rapidly into our residential areas," he said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 24, 2026

Our robot felt something like relief when she made it past without incident.

From "The Wild Robot Escapes" by Peter Brown

The “Family Docudrama” series and much that followed read as something like autofiction, drawn from life but juiced up, rephrased, with gestures and incidents isolated and amplified.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026

If you're keeping score, we're now up to eight England players involved in incidents of this kind since Halloween last year.

From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026

Ms. Van Erem’s team found the university responded promptly to the two incidents it identified.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

The FAA recorded , external58 verified lithium battery air incidents so far this year involving smoke, fire or extreme heat.

From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026

The frequency of incidents seemed tied, to some extent, to current events, to the general media profile of Muslims that week or month.

From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers

Related Words

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