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adventitious

/ˌˈædˈvɛnˌtɪʃəs/
IPA guide

Other forms: adventitiously

Adventitious is a word you use to talk about things that "just kind of happen," not because you are trying to do them, but because they just come along.

Christopher Columbus's stumbling upon the Caribbean while searching for a new route to India was adventitious. When you make an adventitious rhyme while speaking, you might hear, "You're a poet, you didn't know it, your long feet show it."

Definitions of adventitious
  1. adjective
    associated by chance and not an integral part
    “they had to decide whether his misconduct was adventitious or the result of a flaw in his character”
    synonyms:
    extrinsic
    not forming an essential part of a thing or arising or originating from the outside
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