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incidental

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Loosely associated; of limited relevance except indirectly.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihnsihdehntuhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪnsɪˈdɛntəl

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. Loosely associated; of limited relevance except indirectly; only accidentally related.

  2. sometimes followed by `to'

    Minor or casual or subordinate in significance or nature or occurring as a chance concomitant or consequence

  3. Existing tangentially, being a byproduct, a tangent, or a likely consequence.

noun

  1. Minor items, not further defined. Incidental expense.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Loosely associated; of limited relevance except indirectly; only accidentally related.

Used this way, incidental is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

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

More ways to use incidental

  • “He requested reimbursement of $7 for incidental expenses.”noun
  • “Incidental expenses.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

incidental musicmerely incidentalincidental learningincidental findingincidental damagesincidental effectincidental resultincidental reference

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • incidentallyadverbDerived adverb

    Introducing a different topic.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • incidental expensenounCompound term

    An expense not budgeted or not specified.

  • incidental musicnounCompound term

    Music composed to accompany the action of a drama or to fill intervals between scenes.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: minor items or not further defined. Incidental expense

incident

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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.