Chance
[tʃɑːns] or [tʃæns]
Definition
(noun.) a risk involving danger; 'you take a chance when you let her drive'.
(verb.) be the case by chance; 'I chanced to meet my old friend in the street'.
Typed by Irwin--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) A supposed material or psychical agent or mode of activity other than a force, law, or purpose; fortune; fate; -- in this sense often personified.
(n.) The operation or activity of such agent.
(n.) The supposed effect of such an agent; something that befalls, as the result of unknown or unconsidered forces; the issue of uncertain conditions; an event not calculated upon; an unexpected occurrence; a happening; accident; fortuity; casualty.
(n.) A possibility; a likelihood; an opportunity; -- with reference to a doubtful result; as, a chance to escape; a chance for life; the chances are all against him.
(n.) Probability.
(v. i.) To happen, come, or arrive, without design or expectation.
(v. t.) To take the chances of; to venture upon; -- usually with it as object.
(v. t.) To befall; to happen to.
(a.) Happening by chance; casual.
(adv.) By chance; perchance.
Typed by Arlene
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [1]. Accident, casualty, contingency, fortuity, fortune, fortuitous event, unforseen event.[2]. Risk, hazard, peril, jeopardy.
v. n. Happen, occur, befall, betide, take place, fall out, turn up, come to pass.
Inputed by Hannibal
Synonyms and Antonyms
[See HAZARD]
SYN:Accident, fortuity, hazard, haphazard, fortune, random, casualty, befoulment,luck
ANT:Law, rule, sequence, consequence, causation, effectuation, intention, purpose,design, certainty
Checker: Patty
Examples
- We must begin, for Laura's sake, where there is the best chance of success, I replied. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- Chance set me free of my London engagements to-day sooner than I had expected, and I have got here, in consequence, earlier than my appointed time. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- Here was a fellow like Chettam with no chance at all. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- I mean to have another chance yet. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- The man knew her, and might by a fortunate chance see her, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyes and ears the more. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- We desire that, too; that he may not by any chance be made her prey again. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- These slippery smooth walls would give him no chance. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- The chances were that that matter, too, was well known to him. Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Gods of Mars.
- And she surveyed her position, and its hopes, doubts, and chances. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- With all the chances thus in our favour I confronted the next emergency, and played the second move in the game. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- We might hide among the great trees for a time, but the chances are small indeed for escape. Edgar Rice Burroughs. A Princess of Mars.
- It was necessary to destroy his chances promptly. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- The chances and changes, the wanderings and dangers of months and months past, all shrank and shrivelled to nothing in my mind. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- The chances against me wanted no reckoning up--they were all merged in one. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- Now Sophia, it so chanced, was fond of a slice of mutton. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- No one chanced to be about, and she got down to the hall in quiet. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- It was considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- At a second stop I met some highly cultivated people of the noble class and while in conversation we chanced to speak of Helium. Edgar Rice Burroughs. A Princess of Mars.
- If the wind had not chanced, in the position I occupied, to set it away from me, my exertions might have ended then and there. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been gazing from a window down on the park. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Indeed, he gradually came to regard it as such, and to feel a sense of personal complacency when he chanced on any reference to the Gryce Americana. Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Chancing for an instant to look down, his glance rested on an uplifted face, flushed, smiling, happy, shaded with silky curls, lit with fine eyes. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing upon something. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
Inputed by Bruno