FORTUITOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fortuitous mean? 

• FORTUITOUS (adjective)
  The adjective FORTUITOUS has 2 senses:

1. having no cause or apparent cause

2. occurring by happy chance

  Familiarity information: FORTUITOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FORTUITOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having no cause or apparent cause

Synonyms:

causeless; fortuitous; uncaused

Context example:

we cannot regard artistic invention as...uncaused and unrelated to the times

Similar:

unintended (not deliberate)

Derivation:

fortuitousness (the quality of happening accidentally and by lucky chance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Occurring by happy chance

Context example:

profits were enhanced by a fortuitous drop in the cost of raw materials

Similar:

fortunate (having unexpected good fortune)

Derivation:

fortuitousness (the quality of happening accidentally and by lucky chance)

 Context examples 

Now, Jia and his team believe, its path was fortuitous.

(Old Data Reveal New Evidence of Europa Plumes, NASA)

Don't think I came here looking for you, Theresa. Your vanity shall not be tickled by any such misapprehension. Our meeting is wholly fortuitous.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

At this fortuitous viewing angle the canyon is seen edge-on, and at the northern end of the canyon its depth can be easily gauged.

(A ‘Super Grand Canyon’ on Pluto’s Moon Charon, NASA)

The coming of her sister's family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation, and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest; and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be expected—she did not herself expect—that any thing beyond occasional, fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

De Kleer used the fortuitous detection of this outburst simultaneously at Gemini and the IRTF to show that the eruption temperature is likely much higher than typical eruption temperatures on Earth today, indicative of a composition of the magma that on Earth only occurred in our planet's formative years, she said.

(A Hellacious Two Weeks on Jupiter's Moon Io, NASA)

It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you—it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was a pictorial sheet, and Jo examined the work of art nearest her, idly wondering what fortuitous concatenation of circumstances needed the melodramatic illustration of an Indian in full war costume, tumbling over a precipice with a wolf at his throat, while two infuriated young gentlemen, with unnaturally small feet and big eyes, were stabbing each other close by, and a disheveled female was flying away in the background with her mouth wide open.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)