by chance
IdiomsExample Sentences
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No one has ever seen one of these fish alive; they have turned up only by chance in a passing net or dredge.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 30, 2026
"So it was only by chance that we were not in the infant school, which was safe. We were in the junior school which caught the brunt of it."
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
All were discovered only by chance centuries later, often during construction work, and one as recently as 1998.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
Did Slate politics by chance publish a really excellent feature today on Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, one so compelling and rich that I could find solace just by reading it?
From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2026
For this was no place one came to by chance; even in the dullness of his thoughts he began to see that.
From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
