FORTUITOUS • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Fortuitous

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/fɔrtˈuɪtəs/ Listen

adjective

Fortuitous adj.

Happening by chance; coming or occuring unexpectedly, or without any known cause; chance; as, the fortuitous concourse of atoms. "It was from causes seemingly fortuitous... that all the mighty effects of the Reformation flowed." "So as to throw a glancing and fortuitous light upon the whole."

(LAw) Happening independently of human will or means of foresight; resulting from unavoidable physical causes.

Synonyms: Accidental; casual; contingent; incidental. See Accidental.

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Etymology of 'Fortuitous'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fortuitous" Quotes from Famous Books

... German, one of the mercenaries of the Duc de Guise, hired for service in a civil strife of France, drawing wearily a crippled companion, so far from home. [14] The memory of it, awakening a thousand strange fancies, had remained by him, as a witness to the power of fortuitous circumstance ...

— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... now concern ourselves. The larva of Sitaris is then in conditions exceptionally favourable for growth; but, in spite of appearances, there is no reason for admiring the marvellous foresight and extraordinary sureness of instinct; nearly everything depends on a fortuitous circumstance, a chance. This becomes very evident if we study another related beetle; it is called the Sitaris colletis, and lives at the expense of the hymenopterous Colletes, as its relative at the expense of the Anthophora. But these ...

— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... Thomas reminds us strongly of the two illustrious brothers Shandy combined in one person. To the exquisite kindliness and simplicity of Uncle Toby he unites the omnivorous intellectual appetite and the humorous pedantry of the head of the family. The resemblance, indeed, may not be quite fortuitous. Though it does not appear that Sterne, amidst his multifarious pilferings, laid hands upon Sir Thomas Browne, one may fancy that he took a general hint or two from so congenial ...

— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... this element in Darwinism that was repugnant to most of Darwin's opponents, in whose ranks were found the majority of the morphologists of the old school. They found it impossible to believe that evolution could have come about by fortuitous variation and fortuitous selection; they objected to Darwin that he had enunciated no real Entwickelungsgesetz, or law governing evolution. They were not unwilling to believe that evolution was a real process, ...

— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... Histoire de la Revolution Francaise. At the moment when he came from Aix to Paris, the tide of reaction was rising steadily in France. Decazes had fallen; Louis XVIII. was surrendering to the ultra-royalist cabal. Aided by such fortuitous events as the murder of the Duc de Berri, and supported by an artificial majority in the Chamber, Villele was endeavouring to bring back the ancien regime. Compensation for the emigres was already mooted; ecclesiastical ...

— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

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