accidental

adjective

1. 1

   Pertaining to accident and not essence; thus, inessential; incidental; secondary.

   It would be absurd to say that Marxism was predestined to become the ideology of the self-glorifying Russian bureaucracy. Nevertheless, it contained essential features, as opposed to accidental or secondary ones, that made it adaptable to this purpose.

2. 2

   Pertaining to accident and not essence; thus, inessential; incidental; secondary. Nonessential to something's inherent nature (especially in Aristotelian thought).

3. 3

   Adjusted by one or two semitones, in temporary departure from the key signature.

4. 4

   Occurring sometimes, by chance; occasional.

5. 5

   Happening by chance, or unexpectedly; taking place not according to the usual course of things; by accident, unintentional.

   The discovery was purely accidental.

   He was killed by an accidental gunshot.

   accidental damage

   accidental death

6. 6

   Being a double point with two distinct tangent planes in 4-dimensional projective space.

noun

1. 1

   A property which is not essential; a nonessential; anything happening accidentally.

   He conceived it just that accidentals ... should sink with the substance of the accusation.

2. 2

   Those fortuitous effects produced by luminous rays falling on certain objects so that some parts stand forth in abnormal brightness and other parts are cast into a deep shadow.

3. 3

   A sharp, flat, or natural, occurring not at the commencement of a piece of music as the signature, but before a particular note.

4. 4

   Part of a text that has a mainly structural purpose, such as spelling, punctuation, or capitalization.

Forms

plural

accidentals

comparative

more accidental

superlative

most accidental