chance

• chaunce (obsolete)

• IPA^(key): /tʃæns/
  • (US, Canada) IPA^(key): [tʃʰɛəns~tʃʰeəns]
  • (Northern England, General Australian, Ireland) IPA^(key): [tʃʰæns~tʃʰans]
• IPA^(key): /tʃɑːns/
  • (Received Pronunciation, Cockney) IPA^(key): [tʃʰɑːns]
  • (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): [tʃʰɐːns]

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːns, -æns

From Middle English chance, cheance, chaunce, cheaunce, a borrowing from Old French chance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadere (“to fall, to die, to happen, occur”). Doublet of cadence and cadenza.

chance (countable and uncountable, plural chances)

1. (countable) An opportunity or possibility.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 2, in The Celebrity:

     Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.

   We had the chance to meet the president last week.

2. (uncountable) Random occurrence; luck.

   Why leave it to chance when a few simple steps will secure the desired outcome?

3. (countable) The probability of something happening.

   There is a 30 percent chance of rain tomorrow.

4. (countable, archaic) What befalls or happens to a person; their lot or fate.
   • 1795, Robert Southey, "The Soldier's Wife" :

     Wild-visag'd Wanderer! ah for thy heavy chance!

chance (not comparable)

1. Happening by chance, casual.
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, ch. VI, The Shoe Maker (Heron Book Centennial Edition)

     No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there.

chance (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Perchance; perhaps.

From Middle English chancen, chauncen, from the noun (see above).

chance (third-person singular simple present chances, present participle chancing, simple past and past participle chanced)

1. (archaic, intransitive) To happen by chance, to occur.

   It chanced that I found a solution the very next day.

   • Bible, Deuteronomy xxii. 6

     if a bird's nest chance to be before thee

   • Shakespeare

     I chanced on this letter.

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XV, Practical — Devotional

     Once […] it chanced that Geoffrey Riddell Bishop of Ely, a Prelate rather troublesome to our Abbot, made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certain edifices going on at Glemsford.

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII

     Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"—"quite troublesome."

2. (archaic, transitive) To befall; to happen to.
   • 1826, William Lambarde, A Perambulation of Kent

     […] while the King and Godwine sate at the table, accompanied with others of the nobilitie, it chanced the cupbearer (as he brought wine to the bourd) to slip with the one foote, and yet by good strength of his other leg, to recover himselfe without falling […]

3. To try or risk.

   Shall we carry the umbrella, or chance a rainstorm?

   • W. D. Howells

     Come what will, I will chance it.

4. To discover something by chance.

   He chanced upon a kindly stranger who showed him the way.

5. (Belize) To rob, cheat or swindle someone.

   I was chanced out of my money by that fast-talking salesman.

   • Shyne Barrow

     Be prepared to engage in protests of all businesses nationwide who are violating the copyright act and chancing our members.

• (to happen) come to pass, occur, transpire; See also Thesaurus:happen
• (to happen to)
• (to try) test
• (to discover something) come across, come on, come upon, encounter, stumble upon
• (to cheat someone) deceive, fool, trick; See also Thesaurus:deceive

• bechance
• chance on
• chance one's arm
• chance upon

• chance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “chance” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.

Borrowed from French chance, from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadō (“I fall, I die”).

chance c (singular definite chancen, plural indefinite chancer)

1. A chance

• risiko

From Old French chance, cheance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadēns, from cadō (“I fall, I die”). Doublet of cadence, borrowed from Italian.

• IPA^(key): /ʃɑ̃s/

• Audio (FR)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑ̃s

chance f (plural chances)

1. chance
2. luck

• adversité
• guigne (familiar)
• malchance
• malheur

• avoir de la chance
• chanceux
• malchanceux

• choir

• “chance” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• scians

Borrowed from French chance. Doublet of cadenza.

chance f (invariable)

1. chance (possibility of a certain outcome)

From Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadēns, from cadō (“I fall, I die”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtʃãn.tsə/

chance f (oblique plural chances, nominative singular chance, nominative plural chances)

1. chance; fate
2. (rare) a throw of a die

• cheoir

• English: chance (borrowed)
  • Japanese: チャンス (chansu) (borrowed)
• French: chance
  • Danish: chance (borrowed)
  • Italian: chance (borrowed)
  • Portuguese: chance (borrowed)
  • Romanian: șansă (borrowed)
  • Spanish: chance (borrowed)
  • Turkish: şans (borrowed)

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (cheance, supplement)
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (chance)
• chance on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

Borrowed from French chance. Doublet of cadência.

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈʃɐ̃sɨ/

chance f (plural chances)

1. Probability
2. chance, opportunity.

• sem chance

Borrowed from French chance. Doublet of cadencia.

• (Castilian) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃanθe/, [ˈt͡ʃãn̟θe]
• (Latin America) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃanse/, [ˈt͡ʃãnse]

chance m or f (plural chances)

1. chance

chance

1. (Mexico) maybe, perchance, perhaps or possibly

• a lo mejor
• quizá
• quizás
• tal vez