Etymologically
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English

serendipity

History

Etymology

Coined by Horace Walpole in a letter to Horace Mann of 28 January 1754,[1][2] formed from English Serendip + -ity,[1][3][4] after the title of the fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”.[1][2]

Serendip is a former name for Sri Lanka,[1][4] from Persian Sarandīp,[5] from Arabic Sarandīb,[5][2] ultimately from Sanskrit Simhaladvipa “Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island”.[2] The word was rare before the 20th century.[2]

References

  1. [1] [2] [3] [4] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  2. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. [1] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  4. [1] [2] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. [1] [2] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Last edited on 5 October 2026.