# incident

Pronunciation: say "IN-si-duhnt" /ˈɪn.sɪ.dənt/

## Noun

1. Something that happens, especially an event that is unusual, unpleasant, or worth noting, often a fairly minor one.
   - Simple: Something that happens, often something unusual or a little bad.
   - _The meeting passed without trouble apart from one awkward incident near the end._
   - _Several witnesses described the incident to the police that evening._
2. An event that disrupts normal operations or threatens to, such as a workplace illness or a software failure.
   - Simple: Something that goes wrong and may stop work or cause problems, like an illness at work or a computer error.
   - _The support team classified the outage as a major incident and alerted management._
   - _Every incident must be reported within an hour so the response team can act quickly._
3. In aviation, an occurrence linked to operating an aircraft that affects or could affect safety but is less serious than an accident.
   - Simple: In flying, an event that puts a plane's safety at risk but is not serious enough to count as an accident.
   - _The pilot filed a report on the incident after a warning light forced the plane to turn back, although no one was hurt and the aircraft landed safely._
   - _The airline grounded its fleet after the second incident that year._

## Adjective

4. Falling on or striking a surface, as a beam of light or radiation does.
   - Simple: Falling onto or hitting a surface, like light hitting a mirror.
   - _The incident ray strikes the mirror and reflects at an equal angle._
   - _Engineers calculated how much of the incident radiation the surface absorbed._
5. Naturally connected with something or likely to come with it as a result or part of it; usually followed by 'to'.
   - Simple: Likely to come with something or happen because of it, as in 'the risks incident to the job'.
   - _The responsibilities incident to ownership include repairs, insurance, and taxes._
   - _A degree of stress is often incident to high-pressure work._

## Adjective

6. Happening by chance rather than by design; casual or fortuitous, and not part of the main intention. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Happening by chance, not as part of the main plan.

## Other meanings

- (adjective) In law, belonging to or depending on another thing, called the principal.
- (adjective) Standing in a relation of incidence, as a point lying on a line or a line passing through a point.

## Origin

It goes back to Latin incidō ("to happen, befall"), built from in- ("on") and a form of cadō ("to fall"). Its present participle, incidens, gave Middle French incident, and the English word is on record from 1412.

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