Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An unfortunate occurrence; a mishap.
  • noun Bad luck.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To chance or happen wrongly or unfortunately; fall out adversely; meet with a mishap; come to ill luck.
  • noun An unfortunate chance; a mishap; ill luck; disaster.
  • noun Synonyms Mishap, Disaster, etc. See misfortune.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Ill luck; ill fortune; mishap.
  • intransitive verb To happen by mischance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Bad luck, misfortune.
  • noun A mishap, an unlucky circumstance.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an instance of misfortune
  • noun an unpredictable outcome that is unfortunate

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman meschance, Old French meschance, meschaunce.

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Examples

  • Debts are mischances, and I am in mischance with you.

    The Wit of Porportuk 2010

  • Debts are mischances, and I am in mischance with you.

    The Wit of Porportuk 1910

  • It will be recalled that the Army, through unpredictable mischance, which is a euphemism for French defection, had lost all its equipment-tanks, guns, transport, and even rifles had gone.

    The Navy 1941

  • Four had perished by mischance in the bleak, uncharted vastness.

    Chapter 1 2010

  • As mischance would have it, Michael did not reach the ground.

    CHAPTER XXXVI 2010

  • They encounter a ship in a lonely solar system, but through a freak mischance, are bonded to the other ship on a path towards the system's star.

    REVIEW: The World Turned Upside Down edited by David Drake, Eric Flint and Jim Baen 2009

  • Can't possibly be Satan, you think He has time for facilitating the tiny sin of being tempted to blaspheme by the mischance of a wayward round?

    Bullets Do Odd Things at Different Ranges 2009

  • Her mischance lay in that she bumped her head, and, before she could recover way, Forrest had circled the piano and cornered her under it.

    CHAPTER III 2010

  • Can't possibly be Satan, you think He has time for facilitating the tiny sin of being tempted to blaspheme by the mischance of a wayward round?

    Bullets Do Odd Things at Different Ranges 2009

  • Edwin Bentham was a boy, thrust by mischance into a man's body, -- a boy who could complacently pluck a butterfly, wing from wing, or cower in abject terror before a lean, nervy fellow, not half his size.

    THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 2010

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