Word of the Day:
accidence
What It Means
The inflection of words.
The rudiments of any subject.
A book containing the first principles of grammar; (by extension) a book containing the rudiments of any subject or art.
1669, John Milton, Accedence Commenc’t Grammar (title of a Latin grammar)
Accidence in Context
“When Franklin, playing with his kite in a thunderstorm, brought down sparks from the heavens, he was learning the accidence of that science of Electricity which has given us the Telegraph and Telephone […]”
Did You Know?
* First attested in the late 14th century. * (grammar): First attested in the mid 15th century. * From Middle English accidence, accidens, from Latin accidentia (“accidental matters”), from accidēns, present participle of accidere (“to happen”)
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: accidence (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “accidence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accidence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.