Meaning & use
coincidence
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountable
A surprising situation where two or more events happen together by chance, with no one having planned it.
Grammar: Countable for one event (what a coincidence!) and uncountable in general: it was pure coincidence.
Patterns
- by coincidence
- a coincidence that something happened
- it is no coincidence that
It was a coincidence that we booked the same hotel.
What a coincidence to meet you here!
By sheer coincidence, both sisters chose the same dress.
noununcountableformal
The state of happening or agreeing at the same moment or in the same place.
Grammar: Formal and technical; usually followed by of or with.
Patterns
- the coincidence of A and B
- coincidence with something
The coincidence of the two signals confirmed the fault.
Their coincidence in time made the investigators suspicious.
The study shows a coincidence between rainfall and the rise in sales.
Word forms
| plural | coincidences |
|---|
Common combinations
- a pure coincidence
- Their meeting was a pure coincidence.
- by coincidence
- We found the shop by coincidence while looking for a cafe.
- an amazing coincidence
- It's an amazing coincidence that you called just now.
- no coincidence
- It is no coincidence that the best students read daily.
- mere coincidence
- The police do not believe it was mere coincidence.
Synonyms and how they differ
- chance
- Chance names the force of luck itself, while coincidence names the surprising result that two things lined up.
- accident
- Accident often means something harmful or unintended, so it does not always carry coincidence's idea of a surprising match.
- fluke
- Fluke is informal and means a lucky result of a single event, not a meeting of two events.
- serendipity
- Serendipity is a happy discovery by chance, a more positive and narrower idea than coincidence.
Opposites
Word family
- coincide verb
- To happen at the same time or be in agreement.
- coincident adjective
- Happening or occupying the same place or time.
- coincidental adjective
- Resulting from chance.
- coincidentally adverb
- By chance.
Commonly confused: coincidence or consequence?
coincidence vs consequence
A consequence is caused by something earlier, while a coincidence has no causal link.
Practice
We both bought the same book on the same day without telling each other. It was a ___.
Choose one answer.
Two events happening together by chance is a coincidence. A consequence needs a cause, which is missing here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “coincidence”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.