- 1偶然的、碰巧的（正式；很多人當「幸運」用，但本義是碰巧，不是 fortunate）
If something is fortuitous, it happens by chance — nobody planned it. In careful English that is all it means: lucky or unlucky, just not arranged. Though actually, many people now use it as a fancy word for lucky, as if the chance came with a good result. books often give that warmer meaning, and you will hear it that way. Teachers who love old meanings still their noses. The word is formal; in ordinary talk people say by chance, lucky, or a happy accident. It sits near fortunate in the dictionary, but they are not twins: fortunate means you are in a good situation. Fortuitous means the meeting or the timing was an accident — and only sometimes a happy one. It also does not belong with fortress or fortitude. Those come from a different Latin word meaning strong. This one comes from chance and luck.
組成A learned borrowing from Latin fortuītus, happening by chance, from a root for chance and luck (fors). It is a doublet of fortuity — same Latin family, two English shapes.
同家族的字
- fortuitydoublet: same Latin source, another English shape
- fortuneboth go back to Latin fors, chance and luck
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
fortuitousadj/fɔːˈtjuːɪtəs/
- 1
Happening by fortune or chance; accidental, coincidental.
- [I]f vve be not perverſe and vvillful, vve are to inferre that it [the tilt of the Earth's axis] vvas eſtabliſhed by a Principle that has in it Knovvledge and Counſell, not from a blind fortuitous jumbling of the parts of the Matter one againſt another, eſpecially having found before in ourſelves a knovving Spiritual Subſtance that is alſo able to move and alter the Matter.
- [T]his concourſe of Atoms they being left vvithout a guide, it is a miracle above all apprehenſion, that they ſhould produce no inept Species of things, ſuch as ſhould of their ovvn nature have but three Leggs, and one Eye, […] But to elude the force of this Argument againſt the fortuitous concourſe of Atoms they'll excogitate this mad evaſion; That Nature did indeed at firſt bring forth ſuch ill-favoured and ill-appointed Monſters, as vvell as thoſe that are of a more exquiſite frame; but thoſe that vvere more perfect fell upon thoſe other and kill'd them, and devoured them, […]
- 2
Happening by fortune or chance; accidental, coincidental.
- And then he met John Dowsett, the great John Dowsett. The whole thing was fortuitous. This cannot be doubted.
- Admiral [Takeo] Kurita has no identification charts for escort carriers, and, so, assumes that the distant targets are fleet carriers. Commensurately, by scale, their escorts must either be battleships or cruisers. The Japanese forces therefore continue to load armor-piercing rounds, what will turn out to be a very fortuitous mistake for their targets for as long as it lasts.
- 3
lawHappening independently of human control; uncontrollable.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。