Adventitious

4 definitions found

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

  adventitious \ad`ven*ti"tious\ ([a^]d`v[e^]n*t[i^]sh"[u^]s), a.
     [L. adventitius.]
     1. Added extrinsically; not essentially inherent.
  
     Syn: accidental; casual; incidental; additional;
          supervenient; foreign.


          [1913 Webster + PJC]
  
                To things of great dimensions, if we annex an
                adventitious idea of terror, they become without
                comparison greater.                 --Burke.
          [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Nat. Hist.) Out of the proper or usual place; as,
        adventitious buds or roots.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Bot.) Accidentally or sparingly spontaneous in a country
        or district; not fully naturalized; adventive; -- applied
        to foreign plants.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. (Med.) Acquired, as diseases; not hereditary. --AS
        [1913 Webster]
  
     5. (Med.) Occurring in an unusual place or arising from an
        external source. --Stedman 25
        [PC] -- {Ad`ven*ti"tious*ly}, adv. --
        {Ad`ven*ti"tious*ness}, n.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  adventitious
       adj : 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: {accidental}]

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

  46 Moby Thesaurus words for "adventitious":
     accessory, accidental, additional, adscititious, aleatory,
     appurtenant, ascititious, auxiliary, casual, causeless, chance,
     chancy, circumstantial, collateral, conditional, contingent,
     destinal, dicey, extra, fatal, fatidic, fluky, fortuitous, iffy,
     incidental, indeterminate, inessential, nonessential, occasional,
     provisional, risky, secondary, subsidiary, superadded, superfluous,
     supervenient, supplemental, supplementary, uncaused, undetermined,
     unessential, unexpected, unforeseeable, unforeseen, unlooked-for,
     unpredictable
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  ADVENTITIOUS, adventitius. From advenio; what comes incidentally; us
  adventitia bona, goods that, fall to a man otherwise than by inheritance; or
  adventitia dos, a dowry or portion given by some other friend beside the
  parent.