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fortuitous

adjective

Simple meaning

Happening by a lucky chance.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

fawrtooihtuhs

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

fɔɹˈtuɪtəs

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Happening by a lucky chance; lucky or fortunate.

  2. Happening by chance; coincidental, accidental.

  3. law

    Happening independently of human will.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: Happening by a lucky chance; lucky or fortunate.

Used this way, fortuitous is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It suits reflective writing more than quick conversation.

Emotional tone
Positive
Formality
Slightly formal
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Fortunate or pleasantly unexpected
Usage feel
Reflective and slightly elevated

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

fortuitous circumstancefortuitous eventpurely fortuitousfortuitous combinationfortuitous concoursemerely fortuitousentirely fortuitousfortuitous coincidence

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: happening by a lucky chance

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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.