Word.ws English Dictionary

accidently

accidently adverb: accidentally; by chance, unintentionally.

Adverb

accidently (comparative more accidently, superlative most accidently)

  1. (nonstandard) Accidentally; by chance, unintentionally.
    • [T]he exceptions remind me of an ingenious conjecture respecting Newton: that he was probably a being of a superior order, accidently caged in a human body.1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC
    • As I arrived at the foot of the hill I overtook two ladies, whom I passed. As I did so, I brushed one of them accidently on the arm.1899, Knut Hamsun, “Part I”, in George Egerton [pseudonym; Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright], transl., Hunger […], London: Leonard Smithers and Co […], →OCLC, page 15

Examples of accidently in a sentence

  • [W]hich arises from four galaxies at four quite different distances that accidently appear close together in the sky.1980, Phillip James Edwin Peebles, The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe (Astrophysics), Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 151:
  • Juan accidently spills some coffee on a client during a business meeting.2012, Patrick R. Delaney PhD, CPA; O. Ray Whittington, Wiley CPA Exam Review 2012, Regulations, page 334:

Forms of accidently

comparativemore accidently
superlativemost accidently

Origin of accidently

From Middle English accidently, accidentli (“by chance; temporarily; artificially”), equivalent to accident + -ly.

Questions about accidently

What does accidently mean?
Accidently means accidentally; by chance, unintentionally.
How do you use accidently in a sentence?
[W]hich arises from four galaxies at four quite different distances that accidently appear close together in the sky.
What part of speech is accidently?
Accidently is an adverb.

Words near accidently in the dictionary

  1. accidentaly
  2. accidentary
  3. accidented
  4. accidentia
  5. accidentily
  6. accidently
  7. accidentologist
  8. accidentologists
  9. accidentology
  10. accidents
  11. accidents of birth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: accidently (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “accidently.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accidently. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.