hapchanceとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

hap (“luck, fortune, chance”) +‎ chance (“chance, fortune”): a tautological compound, in which both elements independently mean “chance”. Compare the similarly redundant haphazard (hap + hazard), and the synonymous happenchance and happenstance. Recorded from 1866, but attested chiefly in literary prose of the 20th century.

発音

• (英国発音) IPA: /ˈhapˌtʃɑːns/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈhæpˌtʃæn(t)s/
• ハイフネーション: hap‧chance
• (英国発音) 韻: -ɑːns
• (General American) 韻: -æns

名詞

hapchance (countable and uncountable, plural hapchances) (rare, literary)

1. (uncountable) Chance, luck, fortune; the random or unplanned quality of an event. (frequently in by hapchance)

   Synonyms: chance, (archaic) hap, happenchance, happenstance, luck

   • 1905, Louis Joseph Vance, Terence O'Rourke, Gentleman Adventurer‎, New York:

     For the next few minutes he rather neglected the game, the countess absorbing his entire regard. For, by hapchance, the 25 won for her; and, as she took the thirty-five sovereigns, the woman's color deepened, her lips parted, her eyes glowed, and for the moment she looked radiantly happy.

   • 1910, Louis Joseph Vance, The Fortune Hunter, novelized from the play by Winchell Smith, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company:

     Duncan and Betty took an hour off at the bank the following morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into Graham's drug-store.

   • 1913 November 17, “Darkness Hides Some Queer Things”, in The Lake County Times‎, Hammond, Ind., page 1:

     Under the cover of darkness queer things happen in strange corners and some of them come to light. Here are two incidents that by hapchance are revealed […]

   • 1926, O. G. Sonneck, editor, Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries, New York: G. Schirmer, page 160:

     It could not actually be called a conversation, for he spoke in monologue, usually at some length, and more as though by hapchance and at random.

   • 1969, Jessamyn West, Except for Me and Thee, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World:

     A little brush, two horses meeting by hapchance, was one thing, but a downright, bald-faced […]

   • 1975, Jessamyn West, The Massacre at Fall Creek, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich:

     There's no rules, in spite of what I said. It's all hapchance, and I think God Himself keeps pretty clear […]

2. (countable) A chance occurrence; an accident, a coincidence.

   Synonyms: fluke, happenchance, happenstance

   • 1953, Richard Llewellyn, A Flame for Doubting Thomas, New York: Macmillan:

      […]and yet content to dote upon a line, or the hapchance of a sounding word.

   • 1954, William Byron Mowery, Tales of the Ozarks, New York: Bouregy & Curl:

      […]a shrewd job, made to look exactly like an evil hapchance of the woods.

   • 1974, Andrew Allan, Andrew Allan: A Self-Portrait, Toronto: Macmillan of Canada:

     These were satisfactions. The hapchances of the radio studios were calling on […]

For quotations using this term, see Citations:hapchance.

使用する際の注意点

• Though marked archaic in some sources, hapchance is better described as rare: it is continuously attested through the 20th century and still turns up occasionally. It is almost wholly a written word, and a handful of authors account for a large share of its currency — notably the American novelist Louis Joseph Vance, who used it in at least seven books from 1905 onwards and whose serialized fiction carried it through the American newspaper press between 1908 and 1917, and Jessamyn West, who gives it to her Quaker characters.

関連する語

• hap
• haphazard
• haply
• happen
• happenchance
• happenstance
• mayhap
• perchance

形容詞

hapchance (not comparable) (rare, literary)

1. Happening or met with by chance; chance, casual, random, haphazard.

   Synonyms: adventitious, casual, chance, fortuitous, haphazard, random

   • 1907, Louis Joseph Vance, The Brass Bowl, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company:

     He was close upon the farther end when—upon a hapchance impulse—he glanced over the nearest guard-rail, down at the bed of the creek.

   • 1924 July 30, Herbert Corey, “Manhattan Days and Nights”, in Evening Star‎, Washington, D.C.:

     Whether he is right or wrong in his generalization, he has prepared a serious indictment against the hapchance druggists who make up his prescriptions.

   • 1926, O. G. Sonneck, editor, Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries, New York: G. Schirmer, page 207:

      […]had set down on them in lead-pencil yard-long calculations, hapchance musical ideas, in short a veritable miscellany, so that these thin lindenwood boards formed a sort of diary.

   • 1937, Oliver La Farge, The Enemy Gods, Boston: Houghton Mifflin:

      […]half the pleasure of travelling is in the hapchance overnights along the road, contacts and […]

   • 1956, Oliver La Farge, Behind the Mountains, Boston: Houghton Mifflin:

      […]as they used to do in those days, a wide and hapchance assortment […]

副詞

hapchance (not comparable) (rare, literary)

1. By chance; at random; haphazardly.

   Synonyms: by chance, haphazardly, (archaic) haply, (archaic) perchance

   • 1908, Louis Joseph Vance, The Black Bag, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company:

     As it happened, the thing worked with disconcerting abruptness as his untrained fingers fell hapchance on the spring.

   • 1927, C. Spearman, The Abilities of Man: Their Nature and Measurement, New York, London: Macmillan, page 60:

      […]are yet not at the same time of so vigorous and lofty an intellect as to live orderly, with calmness and constancy, but are carried hapchance by mere buoyancy of spirits and are deserted by everything like stability.

   • 1976, Russell Tinsley, All About Small-Game Hunting in America, New York: Winchester Press:

      […]relying on the law of averages to hapchance try a spot where a willing animal would be […]

   • 1988, Patricia Wright, I Am England, London: Corgi:

      […]nor was it usually left to huntsmen pulled hapchance from the forest.

参照

• “hapchance, noun.”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.