contingency
noun
Simple meaning
A possibility; something which may or may not happen.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhntinjuhnseeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kənˈtɪndʒənsi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
countable
A possibility; something which may or may not happen. A chance occurrence, especially in finance, unexpected expenses.
uncountable
The quality of being contingent, of happening by chance.
financecountable
An amount of money which a party to a contract has to pay to the other party (usually the supplier of a major project to the client) if he or she does not fulfill the contract according to the specification.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A possibility; something which may or may not happen. A chance occurrence, especially in finance, unexpected expenses.
Used this way, contingency is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a financial use: it has a settled meaning in accounting and business, where precision matters more than colour.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
- Business/professional
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use contingency
- “We have a contingency plan in case the first one fails.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.