fortuitous
happening by chance, often in a lucky way
Word origin: From Latin fors, chance or luck.
Fortuitous in a sentence
Here are example sentences showing fortuitous in a sentence.
Their meeting was entirely fortuitous, but it changed the course of both careers.
The discovery of penicillin was fortuitous, arising from a contaminated culture that Fleming nearly discarded.
Using “fortuitous” well
Strictly, fortuitous means happening by chance, though it is widely used to mean lucky. The GRE rewards the precise sense of accidental, so beware of treating it as a pure synonym for fortunate.
More GRE words starting with F
to make up something false in order to deceive
a deliberately false statement or invented account intended to mislead
a person who invents elaborate or untruthful stories
treating serious matters with inappropriate or flippant humor
achieved too easily and therefore superficial or shallow
to make an action or process easier or more achievable
a small, organized group within a larger one, especially one that is in opposition
inclined to form rival groups and provoke internal dissent
Questions about “fortuitous”
See these words the way the GRE tests them.
Definitions in isolation do not stick. Sit a free, full-length GRE mock and meet this vocabulary inside real text completion and sentence equivalence questions, with your score and a worked solution for every answer.