accidence

English

Etymology

• First attested in the late 14th century.
• (grammar): First attested in the mid 15th century.
• From Middle English accidence, accidens, from Latin accidentia (“accidental matters”), from accidēns, present participle of accidere (“to happen”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæk.sɪ.dəns/
• IPA^(key): /ˈæk.sə.dəns/, /ˈæk.sə.dɛns/, /ˈæk.sə.dənts/, /ˈæk.sə.dɛnts/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

accidence (countable and uncountable, plural accidences)

1. (grammar) The inflection of words.
   • 1627, John Brinsley, Ludus Literarius; or, The Grammar Schoole‎^[1], London: John Bellamie, page xiii:

     To teach Schollars how to bee able to reade well, and write true Orthography, in a short space. 2. To make them ready in all points of Accedence and Grammar, to answere any necessary question therein.

   • 1669, John Milton, Accedence Commenc’t Grammar (title of a Latin grammar)^[2]
   • 1871, Review of An Elementary Greek Grammar by William W. Goodwin, North American Review, Volume 112, No. 231, 1 April, 1871, p. 427,^[3]

     Our best schools send every year to college boys who know their accidence reasonably, and in some cases admirably well […]

   • 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 607:

     "Room. Rooms. It same thing." Jalii was above accidence.

   • 1985, Robert Burchfield, The English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 103:

     All major sectors of English grammar, including syntax and accidence, are put through their paces in a systematic way[.]

2. The rudiments of any subject.
   • 1904, Edwin Sidney Hartland, Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance and Folklore‎^[4], London: David Nutt, page 67:

     When Franklin, playing with his kite in a thunderstorm, brought down sparks from the heavens, he was learning the accidence of that science of Electricity which has given us the Telegraph and Telephone […]

3. A book containing the first principles of grammar; (by extension) a book containing the rudiments of any subject or art.
   • 1562, Gerard Legh, The Accedence of Armorie‎^[5], published 1597, Preface:

     And forsomuch as this treateth of blazon of Armes, and of the worthie bearers of them […] I therefore, have named this, the Accedence of Armorie […]

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence.

   • 1759, The Annual Register‎^[6], page 295:

     Two years afterwards he got part of an accidence and grammar, and about three fourths of Littleton’s dictionary. He conceived a violent passion for reading […]

   • 1895, Maud Wilder Goodwin, The Colonial Cavalier; or, Southern Life Before the Revolution‎^[7], Boston: Little Brown & Co., pages 230–231:

     Hugh Jones, a Fellow of William and Mary College, writes of his countrymen that, for the most part, they are only desirous of learning what is absolutely necessary, in the shortest way. To meet this peculiarity Mr. Jones states that he has designed a royal road to learning, consisting of a series of text-books embracing an Accidence to Christianity, an Accidence to the Mathematicks, and an Accidence to the English Tongue.

Related terms

• accident

References

• “accidence”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.