Word.ws English Dictionary

perchance

/ˌpɜːˈtʃɑːns//ˌpɜɹˈtʃæns/

perchance adverb: perhaps.

Adverb

perchance (not comparable)

  1. (humorous, literary) Perhaps.
    • You wouldn't, perchance, have a bottle opener on you, would you?
    • Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him[…]1624, John Donne, chapter XVII, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC

perchance meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

perchance in Marathi

perhaps, by chance
यदाकदाचित yadākdācit

perchance in Urdu

اگر, غالباً, اتفاقاً, شاید

perchance in Malayalam

perhaps, maybe, possibly
ഒരുപക്ഷേ, പക്ഷേയെങ്കിൽ, ഒരുവേള, കഴിയുംവണ്ണം, ചെലപ്പം, ചിലപ്പോൾ

perchance in Kannada

ಒಂದು ವೇಳೆ

Examples of perchance in a sentence

  • “Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are / So lightly, beautifully built: / Perchance I may return with others there / When I have purged my guilt.”1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Palace of Art”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 154:
  • A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, / Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned / That brushed my cap—perchance the guide I sought.1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, section XXVII:

Synonyms of perchance

All synonyms of perchance

Origin of perchance

From Middle English parchaunce, from Old French par cheance (“by chance”).

Words that rhyme with perchance

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about perchance

What does perchance mean?
Perchance means perhaps.
What is perchance in Marathi?
Perchance in Marathi is यदाकदाचित (yadākdācit). See Perchance meaning in Marathi.
How do you use perchance in a sentence?
“Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are / So lightly, beautifully built: / Perchance I may return with others there / When I have purged my guilt.”
What part of speech is perchance?
Perchance is an adverb.
How do you pronounce perchance?
Perchance is pronounced /ˌpɜːˈtʃɑːns/ (UK).

Words near perchance in the dictionary

  1. perch poles
  2. perch stay
  3. perch stays
  4. percha
  5. perchable
  6. perchance
  7. Perche
  8. perched
  9. percher
  10. percheries
  11. percheron

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: perchance (page history and authors); perchance (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); perchance (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); perchance (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-perchance.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-AnotherFriendlyHuman-perchance.wav.

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