Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An event that may occur but that is not likely or intended; a possibility.
- noun A possibility that must be prepared for; a future emergency.
- noun The condition of being dependent on chance; uncertainty.
- noun Something incidental to something else.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The mode of existence of that which is contingent; the possibility that that which happens might not have happened; that mode of existence, or of coming to pass, which does not involve necessity; a happening by chance or free will; the being true of a proposition which would not under all circumstances be true.
- noun A casualty; an accident; a fortuitous event, or one which may or may not occur.
- noun A touching; a falling together; contact: as, “the point of contingency,”
- noun In biometry, a method of studying statistically biological data that do not admit of numerical expression.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Union or connection; the state of touching or contact.
- noun The quality or state of being contingent or casual; the possibility of coming to pass.
- noun An event which may or may not occur; that which is possible or probable; a fortuitous event; a chance.
- noun An adjunct or accessory.
- noun (Law) A certain possible event that may or may not happen, by which, when happening, some particular title may be affected.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun countable An amount of
money which a party to acontract has to pay to the other party (usually the supplier of a majorproject to the client) if he or she does not fulfill the contract according to thespecification . - noun logic, countable A
statement which is neither atautology nor acontradiction .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a possible event or occurrence or result
- noun the state of being contingent on something
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The U.S. government depends heavily on what it calls "contingency contracting" to support the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Report Finds Vast Waste in U.S. War Contracts Nathan Hodge 2011
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The international lenders also attempted to make informed estimates on the loan losses, earmarking another possible €25 billion for what they described as a "contingency" fund, which the authorities here implied would never be used only, no matter the circumstances.
Irish Banks Hope Stress Tests Restore Confidence Eamon Quinn 2011
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Mainly, officials say, that any planning that is going on for Iraq (sic) right now is what they call contingency planning, not operational planning, not looking at yet trying yet to match troops, airplane ships, assets against any type of plan in order to make it happen.
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Originally Locog was looking at releasing these tickets, which they call "contingency tickets" at the end of November or early December, but it appears nailing down the availability of every seat is taking longer than expected and they now won't go onto the market until well after the festive season.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011
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The "extra" contingency from the tolling is already primarily city resident paid.
“Anyone Who Says There Aren’t Going to Be Cost Overruns Is Fooling Themselves.” « PubliCola 2010
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Please tell the mayor that the contingency is not the line item cost of tunnel boring and should not be treated as such when stating that the tunnel boring could go 90% over estimate.
Open Letter to the Council: Take the Same Damn Risk You’re Asking Us To Take « PubliCola 2010
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You are right, we have -- in contingency contracting in Iraq, in the early years, did not have the tradecraft and the controls that were appropriate.
David Isenberg: A Hundred Billion Dollars Up in Smoke David Isenberg 2010
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The contingency is 415 million, and there is another 400 million contingency tolling, please look at page two of the estimate, the tunnel boring estimated cost is $350 million dollars.
Open Letter to the Council: Take the Same Damn Risk You’re Asking Us To Take « PubliCola 2010
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Also, am I wrong in thinking that the contingency is based on a lot of assumptions?
Open Letter to the Council: Take the Same Damn Risk You’re Asking Us To Take « PubliCola 2010
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The contingency is about 400 million, the extra-bonus tolling could be 400 million.
Open Letter to the Council: Take the Same Damn Risk You’re Asking Us To Take « PubliCola 2010
steerpike commented on the word contingency
In his novel 'Nemesis', Philip Roth describes chance as "the tyranny of contingency".
January 24, 2013