Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adverb By chance or accident.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • By hap, accident, or chance; perhaps; perchance.
  • Synonyms See happily.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb By hap, chance, luck, or accident; perhaps; it may be.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb by accident or luck
  • adverb perhaps

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb by accident

Etymologies

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Examples

  • By Allah, none shall suffer perdition save I; for thou wilt fare forth to the bazar and consort with those that shall divert thee, and thy life will be sound and thy love hidden forsure; but I shall fall into trouble and tristesse nor find any to console me, more by token that I have given the Caliph a tryst, wherein haply great peril shall betide me by reason of my love for thee and my longing for thee and my grief at being parted from thee.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • S: Then speak to him a gentle word haply he may mind or fear.

    Three Translations of The Koran (Al-Qur'an) side by side Abdullah Yusuf Ali 1902

  • Oh, the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as haply the world had not seen the like since the foundation of it, nor be outdone till the universal conflagration.

    The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 John [Editor] Rudd 1885

  • It appears to me utterly incredible that, if Jeanne d'Arc had really survived, we should find no further mention of her than such as haply occurs in one or two town-records and dilapidated account-books.

    The Unseen World, and Other Essays 1876

  • It appears to me utterly incredible that, if Jeanne d'Arc had really survived, we should find no further mention of her than such as haply occurs in one or two town-records and dilapidated account-books.

    The Unseen World and Other Essays John Fiske 1871

  • Oh, the miserable and calamitous spectacle, such as haply the world had not seene the like since the foundation of it, nor be outdone till the universal conflagration of it.

    Old St. Paul's Cathedral William Benham 1870

  • We have created you from one tree and have caused you to be as the leaves and fruit of the same tree, that haply ye may become a source of comfort to one another.

    Brent Poirier: Celebration of the Birth of the Bab: Dawn of the Age of the Maturity of Humanity Brent Poirier 2010

  • We have created you from one tree and have caused you to be as the leaves and fruit of the same tree, that haply ye may become a source of comfort to one another.

    Brent Poirier: Celebration of the Birth of the Bab: Dawn of the Age of the Maturity of Humanity Brent Poirier 2010

  • A change, a great change, is coming in society; but, haply, it may not be the change the bear anticipates.

    Chapter 5: The Philomaths 2010

  • What Argive or Phthiotian chief will bear me far from Troy, alas! unto his home, or haply to some island fastness?

    The Trojan Women 2008

Comments

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  • Haply I may remember,

    And haply may forget.

    Christina Rossetti

    February 28, 2009

  • "MENENIUS: I tell thee, fellow,

    Thy general is my lover: I have been

    The book of his good acts, whence men have read

    His fame unparallel'd, haply amplified;"

    - William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy of Coriolanus'.

    August 29, 2009