Contingency

//kənˈtɪnd͡ʒənsi// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being contingent, of happening by chance. uncountable
  2. 2
    a possible event or occurrence or result wordnet
  3. 3
    A possibility; something which may or may not happen. A chance occurrence, especially in finance, unexpected expenses. countable

    "There was also the imperative necessity of creating a reserve fund for unforeseen contingencies, and the question ever present was how was money to be found."

  4. 4
    the state of being contingent on something wordnet
  5. 5
    An amount of money which a party to a contract has to pay to the other party (usually the supplier of a major project to the client) if they do not fulfill the contract according to the specification. countable
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  1. 6
    A statement which is neither a tautology nor a contradiction. countable

Synonyms

All synonyms
eventualityeventualityfortuitypossibilitypossibilityaccessory

Example

More examples

"There is neither contingency nor free will."

Etymology

From contingent + -cy (16th century).

Related phrases

contingency costcontingency plancontingency table

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.