by chance
184
2.3
- idiom
- These are rocks that by chance happen to collide with the Earth.
- happen by chance
- occur by chance
- encounter by chance
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Watch on YouTubeAnd and it's not by chance that most of them are men.
- And and it's not by chance that most of them are men.
- It was just by chance that that Ptom was right there.
- These are rocks that by chance happen to collide with the Earth.
- So what happens if two of these satellites by chance collide?
- Here I did the performance during Fidel Castro's birthday by chance in Cuba.
- Didn't have any luck, but by chance he happened to find my Instagram account.
- And by chance, he's learning how to whistle.
- And but by chance, everything worked for me.
- But so have you heard of Snake Staff Systems by chance?
- And by chance, I did my degree at University College London.
- And some of them are going to get it right by chance.
- OK Did any of your sources start to tangent into that by chance?
- So would you get, you know, a match this good by chance?
- Mutations that didn't exist in Mom, didn't exist in Dad, and wouldn't exist by chance really in any sibling.
Examples
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And then, by chance, he was gone.
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I met him again by chance about two years ago.
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- Did you see who delivered it, by chance?
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Are they still here, by chance?
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Are you available, by chance?
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I was picked purely by chance.
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The story is that a lonely count met her by chance, and they say that no two souls were ever more meant for each other.
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The results were spectacular, with a deviation rate eight times higher than can be explained by chance.
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Their meeting had been by chance, in a drugstore with a small lunch counter.
Fiction book (1993) -
I met him again by chance at the coffee shop while waiting for my friend.
Synonyms
341
1.4
In a way that is not planned and happens by mistake
116
2.4
In a way that has no clear plan or order
91
2.3
Happening without any warning
64
5.2
Without meaning to do something
55
4.9
In a way that happens by chance and is surprising
47
9.9
Says that something might happen by chance
29
3.4
Without meaning to
17
9.9
Maybe in older or more formal writing
4
7.5
By lucky chance when something happens unexpectedly
4
9.9
In a way that happens by chance and not by plan
2
7.7
In a way that happens by chance and brings a good result
1
9.5
In a way that happens by chance or comes from an outside source
Antonyms
How Intentional
Surface Forms
Morphology
by + chance
The meaning 'without planning; accidentally' is directly inferable from combining 'by' (a prepositional marker of manner/cause) with 'chance' (randomness): the phrase simply expresses that something occurred due to chance. This compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically (e.g., French par hasard, Spanish por casualidad), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will very likely understand it.
Etymology
By chance may come from the simple picture of something falling into your path without you planning it, like a ball that drops by accident. So by chance means 'to happen without planning' or 'accidentally'.