chance: Meaning and Definition of

chance

1. the absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled: often personified or treated as a positive agency: Chance governs all.
2. luck or fortune: a game of chance.
3. a possibility or probability of anything happening: a fifty-percent chance of success.
4. an opportune or favorable time; opportunity: Now is your chance.
5. an opportunity to field the ball and make a put-out or assist.
6. a risk or hazard: Take a chance.
7. a share or ticket in a lottery or prize drawing: The charity is selling chances for a dollar each.
8. probability: The chances are that the train hasn't left yet.
9. a quantity or number (usually fol. by of&hasp;).
10. an unfortunate event; mishap.
11. without plan or intent; accidentally: I met her again by chance in a department store in Paris.
12. in the mild hope or against the possibility: I'll wait on the chance that she'll come.
13. in the very slight hope or against the very slight possibility.

1. to happen or occur by chance: It chanced that our arrivals coincided.

1. to take the chances or risks of; risk (often fol. by impersonal it): I'll have to chance it, whatever the outcome.
2. to come upon by chance; meet unexpectedly: She chanced on a rare kind of mushroom during her walk through the woods.

1. not planned or expected; accidental: a chance occurrence.