incident
pronunciation
How to pronounce incident in British English:
UK [ˈɪnsɪdənt]
How to pronounce incident in American English:
US [ˈɪnsɪdənt]
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- Noun:
- a single distinct event
- a public disturbance
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- Adjective:
- falling or striking on something
- (sometimes followed by `to') minor or casual or subordinate in significance or nature or occurring as a chance concomitant or consequence
Word Origin
- incident
- incident: [15] An incident is literally that which ‘befalls’. In common with accident and occident, and a wide range of other English words, from cadaver to occasion, it comes ultimately from Latin cadere ‘fall’. This was combined with the prefix in- ‘on’ to produce incidere ‘fall on’, hence ‘befall, happen to’. Its present participial stem incident- passed into English either directly or via French.The use of a word that literally means ‘fall’ to denote the concept of ‘happening’ is quite a common phenomenon. It occurs also in befall and chance, and operates in other languages than English; Welsh digwydd ‘happen’, for instance, is derived from cwyddo ‘fall’.=> accident, cadence, case, occasion
- incident (n.)
- early 15c., "something which occurs casually in connection with something else," from Middle French incident and directly from Latin incidentem (nominative incidens), present participle of incidere "happen, befall," from in- "on" + -cidere, comb. form of cadere "to fall" (see case (n.1)). Sense of "an occurrence viewed as a separate circumstance" is from mid-15c. Meaning "event that might trigger a crisis or political unrest" first attested 1913.
- incident (adj.)
- "conducive (to), contributing (to)," early 15c., from Middle French incident (adj.) or directly from Latin incidens, present participle of incidere (see incident (n.)).
Synonym
Example
- 1. The incident under investigation in japan occurred last year .
- 2. They said the incident was contrived to attract sympathy votes .
- 3. This incident had a particularly devastating effect on my brother .
- 4. South korea was outraged by the incident .
- 5. Report every incident to the cpsc .