serendipity.
The phenomenon of making an unplanned, fortunate discovery through a combination of unexpected circumstances and insightful recognition.
Meaning & usage
The phenomenon of making an unplanned, fortunate discovery through a combination of unexpected circumstances and insightful recognition.
An unsought, unintended or unexpected, but fortunate, discovery or learning experience that occurs by accident.
The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-Iranian *sinȷ́ʰás Proto-Indo-Aryan *sinźʰás Sanskrit सिंह (siṃha) Proto-Indo-European *-lós Sanskrit -ल (-la) Sanskrit सिंहल (siṃhala) Proto-Indo-Iranian *dwiHpás Sanskrit द्वीप (dvīpa) Sanskrit सिंहलद्वीप (siṃhaladvīpa) Prakrit *𑀲𑀻𑀳𑀮𑀤𑀻𑀯 (*sīhaladīva)bor. Persian سرندیپ (sarandip)bor. Arabic سَرَنْدِيب (sarandīb)bor. English Serendibder. English Serendip Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Latin -itāsder. Old French -itebor. Middle English -ite English -ity English serendipity From Serendip (“variant of Serendib: Ceylon, Sri Lanka”) + -ity. Coined by English writer and politician Horace Walpole in 1754 based on the Persian story of the Three Princes of Serendip, who (Walpole wrote to a friend) were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.