accidental, a. and n.
(æksɪˈdɛntəl)
[? a. Fr. accidental, -el, 16th c. in Littré (cf. Pr. and Sp. accidental, It. accidentale), ad. med. or late L. accidentāl-is f. accidens, -ent-, n. (see accident n.); cf. occidentāl-is, parentāl-is. The regular L. form would probably have been accidentiāl-is f. accidentia, cf. essential, substantial.]
Earliest occurrence in senses 3, 4.
A. adj.
I. Coming by chance, or on a chance occasion.
1. Happening by chance, undesignedly, or unexpectedly; produced by accident; fortuitous.
| 1578 Timme Calvin on Gen. 84 As though all the crookedness of our disposition were not accidental. 1607 Topsell Four-footed Beasts (1673) 267 Accidentall diseases be those that come by chance, as by surfetting, of cold, heat, and such like thing. 1653 Walton Compl. Angler i. 14, I made an accidental mention of it. 1765 Tucker Lt. of Nat. II. 88 A man shoots at a rat in his yard, and kills a chicken which he did not intend, therefore we call this accidental. 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 256 They are causes, therefore, as constant as the tides themselves, and, like them, depend on no temporary or accidental circumstances. 1882 Pall Mall G. 10 May 3/1 The jury..deciding after some hesitation to find only accidental death. |
2. Of or pertaining to a chance occasion or chance circumstances; casual, occasional.
| 1506 W. de Worde Ordinary of Crysten Men v. vii. [415] The prayse of the good dedes done in the estate of mortall synne is a Joye accidentalle. 1533 Elyot Castel of Helth (1541) 39 Some accidentall cause, as syckenes, or moche studye. 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. iii. i. 149 Oh fie, fie, fie: Thy sinn's not accidentall, but a Trade. 1772 Pennant Tours in Scotl. (1774) 341 Discovered by the accidental digging of peat. 1825 Waterton Wanderings i. i. 109 The accidental traveller..can merely mark the outlines of the path he has trodden. 1836 Todd Cycl. An. & Ph. I. 497/1 Accidental Cartilage..the cartilaginous concretions..found in situations where they do not ordinarily exist. |
II. Present by chance; non-essential.
3. Logic. Pertaining to logical accidents; not essential to the conception of a substance; not of the nature of its essence; non-essential.
| 1553–87 Fox A. & M. III. 251 Pendleton saith that the colour [of bread] was the earthly thing, and called it an accidental substance. 1628 T. Spencer Logick 277 The second, and third [figures] haue perfection essentiall, but not accidentall. 1788 Reid Active Powers i. i. 513 There are other relative notions that are not taken from accidental relations. 1846 Mill Logic i. vi. §2. 147 All properties, not of the essence of the thing, were called its accidents..and the propositions in which any of these were predicated of it were called Accidental Propositions. |
4. Non-essential to the existence of a thing, not necessarily present, incidental, subsidiary.
| c 1386 Chaucer Melib. 432 The cause accidental was hate; the cause material, ben the five woundes of thy doughter. 1670 Baxter Cure of Ch. Div. 18 If in any integral or accidental point you think that you are wiser. 1750 Johnson Rambler No. 150. ¶4 Those accidental benefits which prudence may confer on every state. 1858 F. W. Robertson Lect. ii. 148 Poetry is a something to which words are the accidental, not by any means the essential form. |
5. Music. Accidental sharps, flats, naturals: signs of chromatic alteration, raising or lowering notes a tone or semitone, strictly so called only when they occur before particular notes, and not in the signature of the various keys.
| 1806 J. W. Callcott Mus. Gram. Accidental Sharps and Flats only affect the Notes which they immediately precede. 1867 Macfarren Harmony i. 23 The employment in the minor of an accidental sharp or natural. |
6. Optics. Accidental colours: complementary colours not actually caused by light, but due to subjective sensation.
| 1849 M. Somerville Connex. of Phys. Sc. §19. 184 After looking steadily for a short time at a coloured object, such as a red wafer, on turning the eyes to a white substance, a green image of the wafer appears, which is called the accidental colour of red. All tints have their accidental colours. |
7. Painting. Accidental lights: ‘secondary lights; effects of light other than ordinary daylight.’ Fairholt.
8. Perspective. Accidental point: ‘A point in the horizontal line, where lines parallel among themselves, though not perpendicular to the picture, do meet.’ Phillips 1706.
¶ Also used adverbially.
| 1622 Rowlands Good Newes 13 Two canting rogues, that old consorts had bin, Did accidentall at an alehouse meet. |
B. n. a. A casual or subsidiary property, see A 3; b. Music. A sharp, flat, or natural, occurring not at the commencement of a piece of music in the signature, but before a particular note, see A 5; c. Painting. pl. ‘Those unusual effects of strong light and shade in a picture produced by the introduction of the representations of artificial light, such as those proceeding from a fire, candle, or the like.’ Fairholt. d. Textual Criticism. [cf. adj. 3.] Applied to any feature that is non-essential to the author's meaning. Cf. accident n. 6 b.
| 1651 Baxter Inf. Bapt. 31 You must distinguish between the Essentials and some Accidentals of the Jewish Church. 1726 Ayliffe Parergon 75 Altho' a Custom introduc'd against the Substantials of an Appeal be not valid..yet a Custom may be introduc'd against the Accidentals of an Appeal. 1868 Ouseley Harmony (1875) i. 6 The use of them [sharps, flats, etc.] both as accidentals and in the signature. 1942 W. W. Greg Edit. Probl. Shakes. p. liv, It is desirable that the preservation of accidentals should be seen in proper perspective. 1959 N. & Q. CCIV. 119/2 If no long s was available in his fount, it would surely have been better to have substituted the modern s for this ‘accidental’ of early script and typography. 1964 Ibid. CCIX. 179/1 Such variants as & for and throughout suggest that Fischer is more faithful than Clark to accidentals. |
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Add: [B.] e. Ornith. = *vagrant n. 4.
| 1952 J. Fisher Fulmar xiii. 303 There is a March fulmar record from the coast of Maine, clearly an ‘accidental’. 1954 R. T. Peterson et al. Field Guide Birds Brit. p. xix, An additional 100 species have occurred in Europe fewer than twenty times: these are described briefly in the appendix of ‘Accidentals’. 1973 Biol. Abstr. LVI. 693/2 The significance of records of accidentals and the possibility of indications of shifting range of the species is discussed. |