Serendipity

We all have experienced the serendipity of relevant information arriving just when we were least expecting it.

About my conlang Vling, maybe I just like the word 'bog'. My other favourite English words are 'whirligig', 'tumbleweed', 'serendipity', 'gargoyle', 'jelly', 'storm', 'ambiance', 'steampunk', 'logogram', 'gazebo', and 'thistle'.

Serendipity is the ability to make, accidentally, happy and unexpected discoveries.

Novices often have more luck finding something arcane than seasoned researchers because of the power of creative thinking and serendipity.

By serendipity, I ran into Tom and Mary in Boston.

There is a faculty which Horace Walpole named "serendipity," — the luck of falling on just the literary document which one wants at the moment.

All collectors of out of the way books know the pleasure of the exercise of serendipity, but they enjoy it in different ways.

The most random serendipity brought the two of us together, and now, we are happily married! If I was just 15 seconds slower, I'd have never met her! This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called "The Three Princes of Serendip;" as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right – now do you understand Serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental Sagacity, (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description,) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who, happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table.

After I got here, in the first lockdown, my mum suddenly passed. It was the week of my final interview with the Mayor. It is serendipity that I am here when my dad really needs me.

2007, Erin McKean, speech at TED Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damn difficult.