Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree Copyright © 2007, 2013 by Mary Embree

[Latinfortuītus; seebher- inIndo-European roots.]

Usage Note: The traditional meaning offortuitous is "happening by chance, accidental." Perhaps because many chance events are favorable or because of the similarity offortuitous tofortunate andfelicitous, fortuitous has acquired the meaning "characterized by good fortune, lucky." (Note that the wordfortunate underwent a similar shift in meaning centuries ago.) In our 2005 survey, a solid majority of the Usage Panel accepted the use of the word to mean "lucky." Some 68 percent accepted the sentenceThe photographer felt that it was very fortuitous that she was in place to take the winning photo, where the adverbvery rules out the possibility that the word might mean "accidental." A similar percentage (67) accepted the sentenceThe meeting proved fortuitous: I came away with a much better idea of my role, where the verbprove makes the meaning "accidental" an unlikely fit. This two-thirds majority stands in stark contrast to the 85 percent that rejected this same sentence in 1967. Nonetheless, writers should take care to avoid creating contexts in which the meaning of the word is ambiguous.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

[C17: from Latinfortuitus happening by chance, fromforte by chance, fromfors chance, luck]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

1. happening or produced by chance; accidental: a fortuitous encounter.

2. lucky; fortunate.

[1645–55; < Latinfortuitus, akin tofors, genitivefortis chance, luck]

usage:fortuitous has developed in sense from “happening by chance” to “happening by lucky chance” to simply “lucky.” Some object to this last meaning, insisting thatfortuitous be kept to its original sense of “accidental.” In modern standard use, however, the word almost always carries the senses both of chance and good luck.fortuitous is infrequently used to mean “accidental” without the suggestion of good luck, and even less frequently to mean “lucky” without a suggestion of accident or chance.

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.