chance   (chāns)    n.   The unknown and unpredictable element in happenings that seems to have no assignable cause. A force assumed to cause events that cannot be foreseen or controlled; luck: Chance will determine the outcome. The likelihood of something happening; possibility or probability. Often used in the plural: Chances are good that you will win. Is there any chance of rain? An accidental or unpredictable event. A favorable set of circumstances; an opportunity: a chance to escape. A risk or hazard; a gamble: took a chance that the ice would hold me. Games A raffle or lottery ticket. Baseball An opportunity to make a putout or an assist that counts as an error if unsuccessful. adj.  Caused by or ascribable to chance; unexpected, random, or casual: a chance encounter; a chance result. v.   chanced, chanc·ing, chanc·es v.   intr. To come about by chance; occur: It chanced that the train was late that day. v.   tr. To take the risk or hazard of: not willing to chance it. Phrasal Verb(s): chance on/uponTo find or meet accidentally; happen upon: While in Paris we chanced on two old friends. Idiom(s): by chance Without plan; accidentally: They met by chance on a plane. Possibly; perchance: Is he, by chance, her brother? Idiom(s): on the off chanceIn the slight hope or possibility. [Middle English, unexpected event, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *cadentia, from Latin cadēns, cadent-, present participle of cadere, to fall, befall; see kad- in Indo-European roots.] Synonyms: These adjectives apply to what is determined not by deliberation but by accident. Chance stresses lack of premeditation: a chance meeting with a friend. Random implies the absence of a specific pattern or objective: took a random guess. Casual often suggests an absence of due concern: a casual observation. Haphazard implies a carelessness or a willful leaving to chance: a haphazard plan of action. Desultory suggests a shifting about from one thing to another that reflects a lack of method: a desultory conversation. See Also Synonyms at happen, opportunity.

Chance

Chance\ (ch[.a]ns), n. [F. chance, OF. cheance, fr. LL. cadentia a allusion to the falling of the dice), fr. L. cadere to fall; akin to Skr. [,c]ad to fall, L. cedere to yield, E. cede. Cf. Cadence.]

1. A supposed material or psychical agent or mode of activity other than a force, law, or purpose; fortune; fate; -- in this sense often personified.

It is strictly and philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent or the cause of any event; but they signify merely men's ignorance of the real and immediate cause. --Samuel Clark.

Any society into which chance might throw him. --Macaulay.

That power Which erring men call Chance. --Milton.

2. The operation or activity of such agent.

By chance a priest came down that way. --Luke x. 31.

3. The supposed effect of such an agent; something that befalls, as the result of unknown or unconsidered forces; the issue of uncertain conditions; an event not calculated upon; an unexpected occurrence; a happening; accident; fortuity; casualty.

It was a chance that happened to us. --1 Sam. vi. 9.

The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts, And wins (O shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts. --Pope.

I spake of most disastrous chance. --Shak.

4. A possibility; a likelihood; an opportunity; -- with reference to a doubtful result; as, a chance to escape; a chance for life; the chances are all against him.

So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune. That I would get my life on any chance, To mend it, or be rid on 't --Shak.

5. (Math.) Probability.

Note: The mathematical expression, of a chance is the ratio of frequency with which an event happens in the long run. If an event may happen in a ways and may fail in b ways, and each of these a + b ways is equally likely, the chance, or probability, that the event will happen is measured by the fraction a/a + b, and the chance, or probability, that it will fail is measured by b/a + b.

Chance comer, one who comes unexpectedly.

The last chance, the sole remaining ground of hope.

The main chance, the chief opportunity; that upon which reliance is had, esp. self-interest.

Theory of chances, Doctrine of chances (Math.), that branch of mathematics which treats of the probability of the occurrence of particular events, as the fall of dice in given positions.

To mind one's chances, to take advantage of every circumstance; to seize every opportunity.

chance 

Chance

(Luke 10:31). "It was not by chance that the priest came down by that road at that time, but by a specific arrangement and in exact fulfilment of a plan; not the plan of the priest, nor the plan of the wounded traveller, but the plan of God. By coincidence (Gr. sungkuria) the priest came down, that is, by the conjunction of two things, in fact, which were previously constituted a pair in the providence of God. In the result they fell together according to the omniscient Designer's plan. This is the true theory of the divine government." Compare the meeting of Philip with the Ethiopian (Acts 8:26, 27). There is no "chance" in God's empire. "Chance" is only another word for our want of knowledge as to the way in which one event falls in with another (1 Sam. 6:9; Eccl. 9:11).

chance

In addition to the idioms beginning with chance, also see by chance; Chinaman's chance; eye to the main chance; fat chance; fighting chance; jump at (the chance); not have an earthly chance; on the (off) chance; snowball's chance in hell; sporting chance; stand a chance; take a chance; take one's chances.