Accidental

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Accidental \Ac`ci*den"tal\, a. [Cf. F. accidentel, earlier
     accidental.]
     1. Happening by chance, or unexpectedly; taking place not
        according to the usual course of things; casual;
        fortuitous; as, an accidental visit.
        [1913 Webster]


  
     2. Nonessential; not necessary belonging; incidental; as, are
        accidental to a play.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Accidental chords} (Mus.), those which contain one or more
        tones foreign to their proper harmony.
  
     {Accidental colors} (Opt.), colors depending on the
        hypersensibility of the retina of the eye for
        complementary colors. They are purely subjective
        sensations of color which often result from the
        contemplation of actually colored bodies.
  
     {Accidental point} (Persp.), the point in which a right line,
        drawn from the eye, parallel to a given right line, cuts
        the perspective plane; so called to distinguish it from
        the principal point, or point of view, where a line drawn
        from the eye perpendicular to the perspective plane meets
        this plane.
  
     {Accidental lights} (Paint.), secondary lights; effects of
        light other than ordinary daylight, such as the rays of
        the sun darting through a cloud, or between the leaves of
        trees; the effect of moonlight, candlelight, or burning
        bodies. --Fairholt.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Casual; fortuitous; contingent; occasional;
          adventitious.
  
     Usage: {Accidental}, {Incidental}, {Casual}, {Fortuitous},
            {Contingent}. We speak of a thing as accidental when
            it falls out as by chance, and not in the regular
            course of things; as, an accidental meeting, an
            accidental advantage, etc. We call a thing incidental
            when it falls, as it were, into some regular course of
            things, but is secondary, and forms no essential part
            thereof; as, an incremental remark, an incidental
            evil, an incidental benefit. We speak of a thing as
            casual, when it falls out or happens, as it were, by
            mere chance, without being prearranged or
            premeditated; as, a casual remark or encounter; a
            casual observer. An idea of the unimportant is
            attached to what is casual. Fortuitous is applied to
            what occurs without any known cause, and in opposition
            to what has been foreseen; as, a fortuitous concourse
            of atoms. We call a thing contingent when it is such
            that, considered in itself, it may or may not happen,
            but is dependent for its existence on something else;
            as, the time of my coming will be contingent on
            intelligence yet to be received.
            [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Accidental \Ac`ci*den"tal\, n.
     1. A property which is not essential; a nonessential;
        anything happening accidentally.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              He conceived it just that accidentals . . . should
              sink with the substance of the accusation. --Fuller.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. pl. (Paint.) Those fortuitous effects produced by luminous
        rays falling on certain objects so that some parts stand
        forth in abnormal brightness and other parts are cast into
        a deep shadow.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Mus.) A sharp, flat, or natural, occurring not at the
        commencement of a piece of music as the signature, but
        before a particular note.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  accidental
       adj 1: associated by chance and not an integral part; "poetry is
              something to which words are the accidental, not by
              any means the essential form"- Frederick W. Robertson;
              "they had to decide whether his misconduct was
              adventitious or the result of a flaw in his character"
              [syn: {adventitious}]
       2: occurring or appearing or singled out by chance; "their
          accidental meeting led to a renewal of their friendship";
          "seek help from casual passers-by"; "a casual meeting"; "a
          chance occurrence" [syn: {casual}, {chance(a)}]
       3: without intention (especially resulting from heedless
          action); "with an inadvertent gesture she swept the vase
          off the table"; "accidental poisoning"; "an accidental
          shooting" [syn: {inadvertent}]
       n : a musical notation that makes a note sharp or flat or
           natural although that is not part of the key signature

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  139 Moby Thesaurus words for "accidental":
     accessory, accident, accidentally, accompanying, addendum,
     addition, additional, adjunct, ado, adscititious, adventitious,
     afloat, afoot, aleatory, appendage, appurtenance, appurtenant,
     ascititious, auxiliary, breve, by-the-way, casual, casually,
     causeless, chance, chancy, circumstantial, coincident,
     coincidental, collateral, conditional, contingency, contingent,
     crotchet, current, demisemiquaver, dependent, destinal, dicey,
     doing, dominant, dominant note, double whole note, eighth note,
     enharmonic, enharmonic note, eventuating, extra, fatal, fatidic,
     flat, fluky, fortuitous, fortuitously, going on, half note,
     happening, happenstance, hemidemisemiquaver, iffy, in hand,
     in the wind, inadvertent, incidental, indeterminate, inessential,
     lucky, mere chance, minim, musical note, natural, nonessential,
     not-self, note, occasional, occurring, odd, on, on foot, ongoing,
     other, parenthetical, passing, patent note, prevailing, prevalent,
     provisional, quarter note, quaver, random, report, responding note,
     resultant, risky, secondary, semibreve, semiquaver, serendipitous,
     shaped note, sharp, sixteenth note, sixty-fourth note, spiccato,
     staccato, subsidiary, superadded, superaddition, superfluous,
     supervenient, supplement, supplemental, supplementary,
     sustained note, taking place, tercet, thirty-second note, tone,
     triplet, unanticipated, uncalculated, uncaused, under way,
     undesigned, undetermined, unessential, unexpected, unforeseeable,
     unforeseen, unintended, unintentional, unlooked-for, unlucky,
     unmeant, unplanned, unpredictable, unpremeditated, unpurposed,
     unwitting, whole note