accident: [14] Etymologically, an accident is simply ‘something which happens’ – ‘an event’. That was what the word originally meant in English, and it was only subsequently that the senses ‘something which happens by chance’ and ‘mishap’ developed. It comes from the Latin verb cadere ‘fall’ (also the source of such diverse English words as case, decadent, and deciduous).
The addition of the prefix ad- ‘to’ produced accidere, literally ‘fall to’, hence ‘happen to’. Its present participle was used as an adjective in the Latin phrase rēs accidēns ‘thing happening’, and accidēns soon took on the role of a noun on its own, passing (in its stem form accident-) into Old French and thence into English. => case, decadent, deciduous
accident (n.)
late 14c., "an occurrence, incident, event," from Old French accident (12c.), from Latin accidentem (nominative accidens), present participle of accidere "happen, fall out, fall upon," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + cadere "fall" (see case (n.1)). Meaning grew from "something that happens, an event," to "something that happens by chance," then "mishap." Philosophical sense "non-essential characteristic of a thing" is late 14c. Meaning "unplanned child" is attested by 1932.
例文
1. Captain Cook safely navigated his ship without accident for 100 voyages.
クック船長が運転する船は100回無事故で無事出航した。
2.Through some unfortunate accident ，the information reached me a day late.
不幸な事故が発生したため、ニュースを知った時は1日遅れていた。
3.The police say his death was an accident ，officially at least.
警察は彼の死は意外だと言っている。少なくとも公式ニュースはそうだ。
4.The accident happened on a notorious black spot on the A 43.
事故は、A 43号道路で有名な事故多発地域で発生した。
5.The police say the killing of the young man was an accident .