fortuitous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin fortuītus (“happening by chance, casual, accidental”) with the suffix -ous,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from forte (“by chance”), the ablative of fors (“chance, luck”),^{[2][3][5][7][8]} which is related to fortūna (“chance, fate”), the source of fortune.^[5][6] Klein explains the Latin adjective as probably a blend of *fortūtus and *fortitus,^[6] and Dictionary.com as a stem fortu-, otherwise unattested, with an adjective suffix.^[9] Hoad traces the noun to Proto-Indo-European *bhṛtis (“that which is brought”), from the base of Latin ferre (“to bear”),^[7] and the American Heritage Dictionary likewise refers it to *bher-.^[10] An earlier adjective, Middle English fortuit, recorded about 1380 in Chaucer's translation of Boethius,^[3][11][12] came from Old French fortuit according to Barnhart and Etymonline,^[3][5] but the Middle English Dictionary derives it directly from Latin.^[11] It gave way to fortuitous in the 17th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Happening by fortune or chance, accidental: 1653, in Henry More's Antidote against Atheism.^[2][13][6] Barnhart has it before 1652,^[3] Etymonline in the 1650s,^[5] and Dictionary.com in 1645–55.^[9]

Semantic evolution

For its first centuries the word meant only "by chance", with nothing said about whether the chance was good or bad.^[14][15] Johnson (1755) defined it as "accidental; casual; happening by chance", quoting Ray on the "fortuitous concourse of atoms",^[16] a phrase the OED also records,^[2] and it has a sense in law as well, which keeps the neutral meaning.^[2][17] The sense "lucky" may have arisen from the likeness to fortunate and felicitous,^[14][18] first of happy accidents and then of good luck in general.^[14] It goes back at least to the 1920s, when H. W. Fowler called it a malapropism.^[14] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate (2003) treated it as standard if not elevated,^[18] and Grammarphobia reported in 2022 that all ten dictionaries it regularly consults accept the lucky-accident sense, three of them as the only one.^[15]

Timeline

• 1653 – happening by chance, accidental.^[2][13]
• 1920s – lucky or fortunate.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Happening by chance and not by plan; accidental: Their fortuitous encounter led to neither good nor harm.^{[19][13][2][14]}
2. Happening by a lucky chance: A fortuitous gap in the traffic let us through.^{[19][18][13][14]}
3. Lucky, fortunate: a fortuitous choice of hotel.^[18][13][14]

Word family

• fortuitously
• fortuitousness
• nonfortuitous

Related words

• fortunate
• fortune
• fortuity
• felicitous

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary calls "happening by chance", with no implication about the outcome, the best-established sense, accepts the use for happy accidents, and advises against the plain sense "lucky or fortunate", which it says is still widely regarded as incorrect.^[14] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate says some critics still disdain "lucky", while the blended sense "by a lucky chance" passes almost unnoticed by them.^[18] Black's Law Dictionary and Etymonline hold to the neutral meaning: Black's notes that a fortuitous event may be highly unfortunate.^[17][5] Grammarphobia avoids the word, since the neutral use is likely to be misunderstood and the lucky one irritates sticklers.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
13. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
15. ^ a b c O'Conner, Patricia T.; Kellerman, Stewart, The Grammarphobia Blog, grammarphobia.com, p. "A fortuitous etymology?", 17 January 2022
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
18. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
19. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins