Fortuit

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Occurring by accident or chance rather than through deliberate planning or intention
2. Describing something that happens unexpectedly by luck, without any purposeful cause behind it
3. Arising from a chance event, so that it was not planned or foreseen by anyone involved

Etymology: "Fortuit" entered English by borrowing from Middle French, where it had the same sense it carries today: happening by chance rather than by design. Its ultimate source is the Latin adjective "fortuitus," formed from "fors," meaning chance or luck, the same root that gave English words such as fortune. Latin speakers used "fortuitus" for events that fell out of nowhere, and the French and English forms kept that sense of accident. The word is rare in English today and is mostly found in formal or technical writing, where it signals an event that was unplanned or unforeseen. Its close relative "fortuitous" shows the same root and the same sense, but is far more common, which makes "fortuit" a short, sharper form of the same idea.