Adjacent Words

Incidental definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

INCIDENT'AL, a. Happening; coming without design; casual; accidental; as an incidental conversation; an incidental occurrence.
1. Not necessary to the chief purpose; occasional.
By some persons, religious duties appear to be regarded as an incidental business.
INCIDENT'AL, n. An incident. [Little used.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: (sometimes followed by `to') minor or casual or subordinate in significance or nature or occurring as a chance concomitant or consequence; "incidental expenses"; "the road will bring other incidental advantages"; "extra duties incidental to the job"; "labor problems incidental to a rapid expansion"; "confusion incidental to a quick change" [syn: incidental, incident] [ant: basic]
2: not of prime or central importance; "nonessential to the integral meanings of poetry"- Pubs.MLA [syn: incidental, nonessential]
3: following or accompanying as a consequence; "an excessive growth of bureaucracy, with attendant problems"; "snags incidental to the changeover in management"; "attendant circumstances"; "the period of tension and consequent need for military preparedness"; "the ensuant response to his appeal"; "the resultant savings were considerable" [syn: attendant, consequent, accompanying, concomitant, incidental, ensuant, resultant, sequent] n
1: (frequently plural) an expense not budgeted or not specified; "he requested reimbursement of $7 for incidental expenses" [syn: incidental expense, incidental, minor expense]
2: an item that is incidental

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Date: 1644 1. a. being likely to ensue as a chance or minor consequence <social obligations incidental to the job> b. minor 1 2. occurring merely by chance or without intention or calculation II. noun Date: 1707 1. plural minor items (as of expense) that are not particularized 2. something that is incidental

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 (often foll. by to) a having a minor role in relation to a more important thing, event, etc. b not essential. 2 (foll. by to) liable to happen. 3 (foll. by on, upon) following as a subordinate event. Phrases and idioms: incidental music music used as a background to the action of a film, broadcast, etc.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If one thing is incidental to another, it is less important than the other thing or is not a major part of it. The playing of music proved to be incidental to the main business of the evening... ADJ: oft ADJ to n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Accidental, casual, fortuitous, contingent. 2. Occasional, adventitious, extraneous, non-essential.

Moby Thesaurus

accessory, acciaccatura, accident, accidental, accompanying, addendum, addition, additional, adjunct, ado, adrift, adscititious, adventitious, afloat, afoot, aleatory, ancillary, appendage, appoggiatura, appurtenance, appurtenant, arabesque, article, ascititious, aspect, auxiliary, beside the mark, beside the point, beside the question, by-the-way, cadence, cadenza, case, casual, causeless, chance, chancy, circumstantial, collateral, coloratura, conditional, contingency, contingent, count, current, datum, destinal, detail, dicey, division, doing, element, embellishment, eventuating, extra, extraneous, extrinsic, facet, fact, factor, fatal, fatidic, fioritura, flight, flourish, fluky, fortuitous, going on, grace, grace note, haphazard, happening, happenstance, iffy, immaterial, impertinent, in hand, in the wind, inadmissible, inapplicable, inapposite, inappropriate, incidental note, inconsequent, inconsequential, indeterminate, inessential, insignificant, instance, irrelative, irrelevant, item, lesser, long mordent, matter, mere chance, minor, minor detail, minutia, minutiae, mordent, negligible, nihil ad rem, nonessential, not at issue, not-self, occasional, occurring, odd, off, off the subject, on, on foot, ongoing, ornament, other, out-of-the-way, paltry, parenthetical, part-time, particular, passage, passing, petty, point, pralltriller, prevailing, prevalent, provisional, random, regard, respect, resultant, risky, roulade, run, secondary, serendipitous, side, single mordent, spare, subordinate, subsidiary, superadded, superaddition, superfluous, supervenient, supplement, supplemental, supplementary, taking place, thing, trifling, trivial, turn, uncaused, under way, undetermined, unessential, unexpected, unforeseeable, unforeseen, unimportant, unlooked-for, unplanned, unpredictable