1. contingent - Noun
2. contingent - Adjective
3. contingent - Adjective Satellite
Possible, or liable, but not certain, to occur; incidental; casual.
Dependent on that which is undetermined or unknown; as, the success of his undertaking is contingent upon events which he can not control.
Dependent for effect on something that may or may not occur; as, a contingent estate.
An event which may or may not happen; that which is unforeseen, undetermined, or dependent on something future; a contingency.
That which falls to one in a division or apportionment among a number; a suitable share; proportion; esp., a quota of troops.
Source: Webster's dictionaryWhen the impulses which stir us to profound emotion are integrated with the medium of expression, every interview of the soul may become art. This is contingent upon mastery of the medium. Hans Hofmann
Evolution, thus, is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection. No longer is a fixed object transformed, as in transformational evolution, but an entirely new start is, so to speak, made in every generation. Ernst Mayr
Engineering, medicine, business, architecture and painting are concerned not with the necessary but with the contingent - not with how things are but with how they might be - in short, with design. Herbert Simon
There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible. Gottfried Leibniz
The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. Walter Lippmann
A significant idea of organization cannot be obtained in a world in which everything is necessary and nothing is contingent. Norbert Wiener