Chance Meaning
/ˈt͡ʃɑːns/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn opportunity or possibility.
nounRandom occurrence; luck.
Sentence Examples
Everyone deserves a second chance.
Any chance you know where I put my keys?
She only has a slim chance of passing the exam.
CEFR Practice Quiz
If you miss this rare ____ to study abroad, you may never get another one.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
This is a great ____ for you to show your skills to the whole team.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English chance, cheance, chaunce, cheaunce, a borrowing from Old French cheance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadere (“to fall, to die, to happen, occur”). Doublet of cadence and cadenza.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence."
— 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
"It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country.
But now I do have that chance, and I'll let you in on a secret: I mean to use it."
— 1965 March 15, Lyndon B. Johnson, 42:30 from the start, in Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise [on the Voting Rights Act], 3/15/65. MP506., Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum:
"Sometimes the name is changed because it is thought to be unlucky. If "Chua" is ill, the chances are that there are certain spirits who do not like his name, so the parents alter his name to "Mee," or something else, and then he gets well again."
— 1908, Ernest Young, “Chapter 4 The children”, in Peeps at Many Lands: Siam, London: Adam and Charles Black, page 16:
"But at the moment when everything was going so well, there came one of those unforeseeable chances that reduce even the most circumspectly arranged plots to the significance of a mere toss-up."
— 1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:
"Wild-visag'd Wanderer! ah for thy heavy chance!"
— 1795, Robert Southey, The Soldier's Wife:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
If you miss this rare ____ to study abroad, you may never get another one.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
This is a great ____ for you to show your skills to the whole team.