serendipity

Meaning

Noun

• A combination of events which have come together by chance to make a surprisingly good or wonderful outcome.
• An unsought, unintended, and/or unexpected, but fortunate, discovery and/or learning experience that happens by accident.
• The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

Origin

• From Serendip + -ity. based on the Persian story of The Three Princes of Serendip, who (Walpole wrote to a friend) were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”.