Definitions

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

  • adverb As a minor or subordinate matter.
  • adverb Apart from the main subject; parenthetically.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In an incidental manner; as an incident; casually.

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

  • adverb manner In an incidental manner; not of central or critical importance.
  • adverb By chance; in an unplanned way.
  • adverb speech act, conjunctive Parenthetically, by the way.

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

  • adverb of a minor or subordinate nature
  • adverb introducing a different topic; in point of fact

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

incidental +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • It is a title incidentally which, in the political sense, might well be applied to modern Turkey as a whole.

    A lord in Europa Minor AYDIN 2006

  • It is a title incidentally which, in the political sense, might well be applied to modern Turkey as a whole.

    Archive 2006-11-01 AYDIN 2006

  • Byng (who incidentally is the brother of Georgia Byng, author of the Molly Moon books for children) estimates the series will be completed in 2038!

    A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong: Book summary 2010

  • Readers will note that they not only sell it in quantities most especially useful for parish churches, but also in smaller quantities for those who wish to burn incense at home -- which, incidentally, is a practice which can be very condusive to setting a climate of prayer, or to mark a feast day.

    Prinknash Abbey 2009

  • Let us support our monasteries -- and one way other day-to-day way to do that incidentally, is to purchase the products which these monasteries produce to help support these monasteries financially.

    Monastic Retreat in County Waterford: Thoughts on Fostering the Monastic and Liturgical Life 2009

  • St. Michael's, incidentally, is now the home of the priest who instigated a simple but handsome renovation at Visitation Catholic Church while he was pastor there, and which we chronicled here some time back.

    Floridian Liturgical News 2009

  • This, incidentally, is an international bank headquartered (or at least once headquartered) in the Basque industrial city of Bilbao, Spain.

    Page 2 2009

  • Paul Theroux: Thor-ew (which, incidentally, is different to Henry Thoreau which is pronounced like 'thorough')

    An Interview with Paul Theroux 2010

  • That front leaf, incidentally, is about as wide as my head.

    Insert amusing Twitter-related title here. 2009

  • Nostalgia, incidentally, is an emotion I'm very interested in these days.

    A Conversation with Kazuo Ishiguro about Never Let Me Go 2010

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