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INCIDENTAL
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An item that is incidental
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("incidental" is a kind of...):
item; point (a distinct part that can be specified separately in a group of things that could be enumerated on a list)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(frequently plural) an expense not budgeted or not specified
Example:
he requested reimbursement of $7 for incidental expenses
Synonyms:
incidental; incidental expense; minor expense
Classified under:
Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession
Hypernyms ("incidental" is a kind of...):
expense (money spent to perform work and usually reimbursed by an employer)
Domain usage:
plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Occurring with or following as a consequence
Example:
collateral target damage from a bombing run
Synonyms:
accompanying; attendant; collateral; concomitant; consequent; ensuant; incidental; resultant; sequent
Classified under:
Similar:
subsequent (following in time or order)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not of prime or central importance
Example:
the character's motives remain accidental to the plot
Synonyms:
accidental; incidental; nonessential
Classified under:
Similar:
inessential; unessential (not basic or fundamental)
Sense 3
Meaning:
(sometimes followed by 'to') minor or casual or subordinate in significance or nature or occurring as a chance concomitant or consequence
Example:
confusion incidental to a quick change
Synonyms:
incident; incidental
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
omissible (capable of being left out)
parenthetic; parenthetical (qualifying or explaining; placed or as if placed in parentheses)
peripheral (related to the key issue but not of central importance)
secondary (depending on or incidental to what is original or primary)
Antonym:
basic (pertaining to or constituting a base or basis)
Context examples:
Patients are usually asymptomatic and its discovery is an incidental finding during chest X-ray examination.
(Alveolar Adenoma, NCI Thesaurus)
The majority of cases are incidental findings during operation for an unrelated gynecologic disorder.
(Fallopian Tube Adenofibroma, NCI Thesaurus)
The condition often occurs as a nonspecific response to mechanical injury from incidental corneal contact by intraocular instruments during surgery; chemical injury from the improper use of intraocular drugs, drugs containing preservatives, or from residues from inadequate rinsing of detergents or other residues from surgical instruments.
(Corneal Decompensation, NCI Thesaurus)
Such might be his constitution; and as she knew that eating and drinking were often the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking some refreshment; he would find abundance of every thing in the dining-room—and she humanely pointed out the door.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
The death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of the pregnancy, irrespective of the duration or anatomic site of the pregnancy, due to any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.
(Maternal Mortality, NCI Thesaurus)
What with the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second, I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in Enmore Park once more.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It just happens that culture, in his case, is incidental to career.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Coming before me, on this particular evening that I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies, the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination, incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it was more than commonly suggestive.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
