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INCIDENTALLY
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I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Introducing a different topic
Example:
incidentally, I won't go to the party
Synonyms:
apropos; by the bye; by the way; incidentally
Classified under:
Sense 2
Meaning:
Of a minor or subordinate nature
Example:
these magnificent achievements were only incidentally influenced by Oriental models
Synonyms:
accidentally; incidentally
Classified under:
Pertainym:
incidental ((sometimes followed by 'to') minor or casual or subordinate in significance or nature or occurring as a chance concomitant or consequence)
Context examples:
Patients are usually asymptomatic and it is incidentally discovered as a pulmonary nodule during chest X-ray examination.
(Lung Papillary Adenoma, NCI Thesaurus)
Some weeks afterwards I learned incidentally that my friend spent a day at Windsor, whence he returned with a remarkably fine emerald tie-pin.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It usually presents as a mucosal nodule and is detected incidentally by endoscopy.
(Colorectal Benign Granular Cell Tumor, NCI Thesaurus)
Pulmonary amyloidomas are rare and are often found incidentally as solitary or multiple calcified nodules and masses on chest radiographs in asymptomatic elderly patients.
(Amyloidoma, NCI Thesaurus)
The majority of the cases are asymptomatic, and they are found incidentally in appendectomy specimens.
(Appendix Enterochromaffin Cell Serotonin-Producing Neuroendocrine Tumor, NCI Thesaurus)
Where your calling is more open to criticism is when you pry into the secrets of private individuals, when you rake up family matters which are better hidden, and when you incidentally waste the time of men who are more busy than yourself.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
And that Charles’s sister’s tale-bearing tongue should be relevant to the building of a Yukon fire, was apparent only to Mercedes, who disburdened herself of copious opinions upon that topic, and incidentally upon a few other traits unpleasantly peculiar to her husband’s family.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only when their course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and triumphs of my art. That I truly devoted myself to it with my strongest earnestness, and bestowed upon it every energy of my soul, I have already said.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Incidentally, I may tell you that we are doing the reverse of what you very justly blame, and that we are endeavouring to prevent anything like public exposure of private matters which must necessarily follow when once the case is fairly in the hands of the official police.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
No matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little wife's mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest apprehensions.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
