Word info Synonyms Antonyms

contingency

Noun

Meaning

Union or connection; the state of touching or contact.

The quality or state of being contingent or casual; the possibility of coming to pass.

An event which may or may not occur; that which is possible or probable; a fortuitous event; a chance.

An adjunct or accessory.

A certain possible event that may or may not happen, by which, when happening, some particular title may be affected.

Source: Webster's dictionary

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Examples

He's almost certainly planned for the contingency of being caught. He's rich and he's got more lawyers than some countries have people. John Scalzi

He is always becoming, and if it were not for the contingency of death, he would never end. Jean-Paul Sartre

It seems to me that everything that happens to us is a disconcerting mix of choice and contingency. Penelope Lively

There was no way he could anticipate every contingency. When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference. Lois McMaster Bujold

The mystery is that the world is at it is -- a mystery that is the source of all joy and all sorrow, of all hope and fear, and the source of development both creative and degenerative. The contingency of all into which time enters is the source of pathos, comedy, and tragedy. John Dewey

Individuality, conceived as a temporal development involves uncertainty, indeterminacy, or contingency. Individuality is the source of whatever is unpredictable in the world. John Dewey

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