1. by accident - Adjective
2. by accident - Adverb
Accidentally; unintentionally; without meaning to; as the result of an event not expected, aided, or willingly planned.
Sorry. I knocked over the vase by accident.
As the result of some undesigned, unintended, unrelated, natural, or random occurrence; as the unexpected and unforeseen result of formerly unrelated factors.
The car got totaled by accident; a giant snowdrift fell off the church roof.
The only way that project still exists today is by accident; I thought we closed it years ago.
The scholar thinks the quote and the parable were spoken on different occasions and only by accident were brought together here.
By chance; unexpectedly; as the result of an unrelated series of events.
I hadn't seen her for years, but I ran into her by accident at the store.
She overheard the information by accident.
by accident (comparative more by accident, superlative most by accident)
Accidental; as the result of some unforeseen happening or series of events; unexpected; resulting from an event without the foresight, expectation, aid, or design of the person by whose agency it was caused; unintentional.
The victim's death was by accident.
That the injury was by accident is not questioned.
The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and have it found out by accident. Charles Lamb
What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. Ludwig van Beethoven
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way. Franklin D. Roosevelt
I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach. Upton Sinclair
The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose. Vincent van Gogh
I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love. Alice Walker