Word a Day
adventitious
What does adventitious mean?
adventitious (adjective): associated by chance and not an integral part.
Definition: Princeton WordNet 3.1.
How do you use adventitious in a sentence?
- They had to decide whether his misconduct was adventitious or the result of a flaw in his character. (Princeton WordNet 3.1)
Where does adventitious come from?
From Medieval Latin adventītius (“coming from abroad, extraneous”), a corruption of Latin adventīcius (“foreign, strange, accidental”), from adventus (“arrival, coming, approach, advent”) + -īcius (suffix forming adjectives).
Etymology: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Test yourself: do you know “adventitious”?
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What does “adventitious” mean?
evading capture, comprehension or remembrance
Not quite: that's what elusive means.
austere, frugal, characterized by self-denial
Not quite: that's what spartan means.
incapable of being explained or accounted for
Not quite: that's what inexplicable means.
associated by chance and not an integral part
Right! That's what “adventitious” means.
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