accident

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 6, 2020 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>accident</strong> &#149; \AK-suh-dunt\&nbsp; &#149; <em>noun</em><br /> <p><strong>1 a :</strong> an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance</p> <p><strong>b :</strong> lack of intention or necessity <strong>:</strong> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chance">chance</a></p> <p><strong>2 a :</strong> an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance</p> <p><strong>b</strong> <em>medical</em> <strong>:</strong> an unexpected and medically important bodily event especially when injurious</p> <p><strong>c</strong> <em>law</em> <strong>:</strong> an unexpected happening causing loss or injury which is not due to any fault or misconduct on the part of the person injured but for which legal relief may be sought</p> <p><strong>d</strong> <em>US</em>, <em>informal</em> — used euphemistically to refer to an uncontrolled or involuntary act or instance of urination or defecation (as by a baby or a pet)</p> <p><strong>3 :</strong> a nonessential property or quality of an entity or circumstance</p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The <em>accident</em> had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell." — <a href="http://www.literaturepage.com/read.php?titleid=taleoftwocities&amp;abspage=29&amp;bookmark=1">Charles Dickens, <em>A Tale of Two Cities</em>, 1859</a></p> <p>"One April night in 1820, the Danish experimentalist Hans Christian Øersted made a remarkable discovery. By bringing an electrical wire near a compass lying on his workbench, he found its needle could be made to shiver and dance. Whether a lucky <em>accident</em> or an inspired