chance of rain
5
2.2
- noun
- With a 70% chance of rain, it would be wise to bring an umbrella.
- percent chance of rain
- cloudy with a chance of rain
- a slight chance of rain
Examples
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Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a slight chance of rain.
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High in the teens and sunny all day with a chance of rain late Tuesday when it all turns to slush, folks.
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Tomorrow, there is a chance of rain...
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With a 40 % chance of rain, always.
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The next chance of rain will arrive Wednesday.
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A 60% chance of rain.
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My favorite forecast is "50% chance of rain."
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Chance of rain about 60%.
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There's a 30% chance of rain today.
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On Monday, there's a 40 percent chance of rain, but by Tuesday a big dome of high pressure will set up.
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Synonyms
∞
1.0
Possibility that something will happen, often an opportunity or risk
473
3.6
The chance that something will happen, often shown as a number or percent
274
3.6
The chance that something will happen
106
3.5
The chance that something will happen
How Likely
- Literature
202
3.4
473
3.6
5
2.2
4
7.0
37
5.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the probability that it will rain' is directly and compositionally derived from 'chance' (likelihood) + the prepositional link 'of' + 'rain' (precipitation); a B1 learner who knows the constituents can infer this meaning. This is a common and transparent grammatical pattern cross-linguistically (e.g. Spanish 'posibilidad de lluvia', French 'chance de pluie'), so the expression is immediately understandable.
Etymology
Chance of rain comes from the simple image of a weather watcher looking at the sky and seeing a small chance that rain will fall. So it means 'how likely it is that rain will fall'.