Synonyms for incidental
- adjective
Most common
accidental casual occasional fortuitous concomitant collateral
Synonyms by meaning
Adjective
1. Accidental
accidental, casual, occasional, fortuitous, adventitious, extraneous, inessential, unintentional, contingent, circumstantial, non-essential, serendipitous, unintended, by accident, chance, unessential, causeless, lippening UK, unplanned, unforeseen, accidentary dated
2. Concomitant
concomitant, collateral, secondary, tangential, accompanying, accessory, consequent, resulting, attendant, subordinate, resultant, sequent, ensuant
Definitions
- adj. 1
Loosely associated; of limited relevance except indirectly; only accidentally related.
That character, though colorful, is incidental to the overall plot.
- adj. 2
Existing tangentially, being a byproduct, a tangent, or a likely consequence.
Injuries are incidental to contact sports: they're going to happen.
Related words
- Word family
- incidentally incident incidence
- Phrases
- incidental expense
Choose the right word
We call a thing incidental when it falls, as it were, into some regular course of things, but is secondary, and forms no essential part thereof; as, an incremental remark, an incidental evil, an incidental benefit.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Example sentences
- occasional Heather regenerates following occasional burning.
- accidental The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death.
- fortuitous How fortuitous that you were there on the same night!
- adventitious A rather adventitious source informed me of his past doings.
- secondary He got all his information from secondary sources.
Popularity over time
| Word | 1850 → 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| incidental | falling | |
| occasional | steady | |
| accidental | falling | |
| fortuitous | falling | |
| adventitious | falling | |
| secondary | falling |
Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.
By length
- 6 letters
- chance1, casual3
- 7 letters
- apropos3, sequent2, ensuant
- 8 letters
- incident3
- 9 letters
- secondary4, resulting3, accessory4, attendant3, unplanned2, resultant3, desultory4, causeless, lippening
- 10 letters
- occasional4, irrelevant4, accidental4, contingent3, collateral4, peripheral4, unintended4, unforeseen3, consequent3, extraneous4, fortuitous4, tangential3, instantial
- 11 letters
- subordinate4, concomitant4, inessential, unessential, accidentary, parenthetic
- 12 letters
- accompanying5, adventitious
- 13 letters
- unintentional5, serendipitous5, parenthetical5
- 14 letters
- circumstantial4
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (casual3 = 3 syllables).