accident

[In Fr. accident; Ital. acc i dente; Lat. accidens, pr. par. of accido = to fall to, to arrive suddenly, to happen: ad = to; cado to fall.] [CASE, CADENCE.] IMG:content-0077.png:[blocks in formation] (a) Something unpurposed or unintentional, an occurrence not planned beforehand by man. Do it at once; "Ant. Or thy precedent services are all But accidents unpurposed. Shakesp. Antony and Cleopatra , iv. 12. "And more by accident than choice, I listened to that single voice." Long fellow: Golden Legend , iv. (b) An unforeseen occurrence, particularly if it be of a calamitous character. This is the most common use of the word. "An unhappy accident , he told them, had forced him to make to them in writing a communication which he would gladly have made from the throne."Macaulay: Hist . Eng ., ch. xxv. "The old ones seem generally to die from accidents, as from falling down precipices."-Darwin: Voyage round the World. (c) The state of a betrayed girl. II. Of une entials: 1. Logic: (a) Whatever does not really constitute an e ential part of a person or thing; as the clothes one wears, the saddle on a horse, . 48 (b) The qualities or attributes of a person or thing, as opposed to the substance. Thus bitterne , hardne , ., are attributes, and not part of the substance in which they inhere. (c) That which may be absent from anything, leaving its e ence still unimpaired. Thus a rose might be white without its ceasing to be a rose, because colour in the flowers of that genus is not e ential to their character. Accidents, in Logic, are of two kinds separable and inseparable. If walking be the accident of a particular man, it is a separable one, for he would not cease to be that man though he stood still; while on the contrary, if Spaniard is the accident connected with him, it is an inseparable one, since he never can cease to be, ethnologically considered, what he was born. (Whately: Logic , bk. ii., chap. v., § 4.) From logic these significations have found their way into ordinary English literature. "And torne substaunce into accident." Chaucer: Pardon eres Tale , 13,954, "The accident of his birth had placed him in a post for which he was altogether unfitted."Macaulay: Hist . Eng ., ch. v. 2. Gram.: A property attached to a word which neverthele does not enter into its e ential definition. Each species of word has its accidents: thus those of the noun substantive are gender, declension, and number. Comparison in an adjective is also an accident. "Unto grammar also be long eth, as an appendix, the consideration of the accidents of words, which are measure, sound, and elevation or or accent, and the sweetne and harshne of them."- Bacon : Advanc. of Learning, bk. ii. 3. Her.: An additional note or mark on a coat of armour, which may be omitted or retained without altering its e ential cha racter. † Med .: A symptom of a disease. ( Rider .)