# chance

Pronunciation: US/AUS say "CHANS" /t͡ʃæns/; UK say "CHAHNS" /t͡ʃɑːns/

## Noun

1. An opportunity or possibility to do or achieve something.
   - Simple: A good time or moment when you can do something you want.
   - _She finally got the chance to prove herself on a bigger stage._
   - _He saw a chance to escape and seized it._
2. The general probability or possibility of something coming about.
   - Simple: The possibility that something could happen or be true.
   - _There is no chance of catching the last train now._
   - _Given the weather, there is some chance of the flight being delayed._
3. Random happenings, or the working of luck rather than plan or cause.
   - Simple: Luck, or things that happen for no clear reason.
   - _By sheer chance, the two old friends ended up on the same flight._
   - _Scientists try to design experiments so that chance cannot explain the results._

## Verb

4. To risk something, or to do or attempt something despite the risk of failure, loss, or harm.
   - Simple: To try something even though it might go wrong.
   - _He decided to chance everything on a single bet._
   - _We could chance the shortcut, though the trail might be flooded._
6. To come across or find something unexpectedly, without planning to.
   - Simple: To find something by luck, without looking for it.
   - _Researchers sometimes chance upon discoveries while studying something else entirely._
   - _Hikers occasionally chance upon rare wildflowers in these hills._
10. To take someone's opportunity, especially by cutting ahead of others waiting in a queue. *(Nigeria)*
   - Simple: To take someone else's turn, often by pushing ahead of people waiting in a queue.
   - _When a man in a suit tried to chance the old woman at the bank, the people behind her told him to wait his turn._
   - _They tried to chance us as we waited for tickets._

## Adjective

5. Occurring by accident rather than by plan or arrangement.
   - Simple: Not planned, but happening by luck.
   - _A chance encounter at the conference led to a long partnership._
   - _The discovery was the result of a chance observation in the lab._

## Adverb

7. Perhaps; possibly. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Maybe, or perhaps.

## Noun

8. The lot or fate that befalls a person; what happens to them through life. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The good or bad things that life brings to a person, their luck or fate.

## Verb

9. To happen or come about by chance, especially to befall a person. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To happen by luck, without anyone planning it.

## Other meanings

- (verb) To rob, cheat, or swindle a person.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–3, 5, 7–8** — Chance comes from Middle English, borrowed from Old French cheance ("accident, chance, luck"). This traces back through Vulgar Latin *cadentia ("falling") to Latin cadere ("to fall, to die, to happen"). It is a doublet of cadence and cadenza.
**Meanings 4, 6, 9–10** — The verb comes from Middle English chancen, formed from the noun chance.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/chance (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).