happenstance
noun

- a chance or a chance situation, especially one producing a good result

The Cambridge Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

“Happenstance” is a combination of “happen” and “circumstance”, first appearing in English in the late 19th century.

“Happen” is from late 14th century Middle English happenen, meaning “to come to pass, occur, come about, be the case”

“Circumstance” adopted from Old French circonstance, derived from Latin circumstantia, has been used in English since the late 13th century to refer to external conditions, situations, or details surrounding an event or action.

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SPECTACULAR COINCIDENCE

“It happened on board the Queen Mary, outward bound for America.” "Bert Aza later reported. Harry Parr Davies, Gracie Fields’ personal accompanist and musical director was leaning over the ship’s rail when his spectacles fell off his nose and dropped overboard.

They were the only pair he had. He couldn’t see his music properly without them, which was going to make rehearsing on board ship pretty difficult. In despair, he told Gracie. Gracie went to the purser’s office to see if she could buy another pair from any of the shops on the Queen Mary. As she did so a steward was pinning a notice on the door. It read, ‘Found, a pair of spectacles. Apply purser’.

Gracie said, ‘If nobody claims these can Harry try them on and see if they suit him?’ The purser agreed, Harry tried them on and found they were his own glasses. The man who had found them occupied a cabin on a lower deck. ‘Most extraordinary thing,’ he confessed. ‘I opened my porthole and put my hand out to see if it was raining. And into my hand fell a pair of glasses.’”

Drop Me A Line

Did you ever experience a very strange coincidence? Drop me a line about it and I’ll share with you an amazing personal story which happened to me in 1996!

Paul

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SYNONYMS

- a chance or random event or circumstance

accident, accidental happening, accidentality, blessing, bonanza, boon, chance occurrence, coincidence, Dame Fortune, dumb luck, Fates, fluke, fortuitousness, fortuity, fortune, godsend, goings-on, good break (fortune, luck, hand), handwriting on the wall, haphazard, happenchance, happy accident, HAPPENSTANCE, heads or tails, hit or miss, karma, kismet, Lady Luck, long shot, luck, luckiness, lucky break (chance, hit, lucky, strike, stroke), mere chance, Midas touch, odd chance, predestination, predetermination, providence, quirk of fate, risk, roll of the dice, run of luck, serendipity, streak of luck, stroke of good fortune (luck), syzygy, throw of the dice, toss-up, turn of the cards, twist of fate, way the ball bounces (the cookie crumbles), what is written (in the stars), wheel of fortune, windfall, wyrd

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“By a strange HAPPENSTANCE all four people were at the same place, at exactly the same time, and carrying exactly the same newspaper!”

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Paul