chance

Reading level: medium

Estimated CEFR level: A2 — Elementary

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a possibility due to a favorable combination of circumstances
  2. noun an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another
  3. noun a risk involving danger

Etymology

From Middle English chance, cheance, chaunce, cheaunce, a borrowing from Old French cheance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadere (“to fall, to die, to happen, occur”). Doublet of cadence and cadenza.

In classic literature

Synonyms

opportunity

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