What does accidence mean?
Accidence is the branch of grammar that deals with the inflectional forms of words — the changes words undergo to express case, number, gender, tense, person, and mood. In languages such as Latin, Greek, German, or Russian, where nouns decline and verbs conjugate through many distinct forms, accidence constitutes a substantial body of material that learners must master, and it was traditionally taught alongside syntax, which governs how inflected words are combined into sentences. The term derives from the Latin accidentia, meaning 'that which happens to' a word — its variable features as opposed to its fixed root. Although still encountered in classical scholarship and older textbooks, accidence has largely been superseded in modern linguistics by the term inflectional morphology, giving it a somewhat traditional, scholarly flavor. Its similarity in sound to 'incidence' makes careful pronunciation worthwhile.
nounThe branch of grammar that deals with the inflectional forms of words, such as case endings, tense endings, and agreement markers. It is traditionally paired with syntax, which governs how those words are arranged into sentences.
- The part of grammar concerned with the inflectional forms of words (case, number, gender, tense, person, mood).
"Students of Latin often find accidence more demanding than syntax, since every noun and verb must be memorized in all its forms."
"The first term of the linguistics course covered accidence before moving on to sentence structure."
"In traditional grammars of Greek, accidence occupied hundreds of pages devoted to declensions and conjugations."
Rarely used; the singular is standard even when discussing multiple languages' systems of inflection.
"Comparing the accidences of Latin and Old English reveals striking parallels."
Despite looking like a typo of 'accidence' for 'incidence', this word has been a pillar of grammar teaching since the Renaissance — and it's why old-school pupils 'learned their accidence' by chanting Latin endings.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of accidence
Accidence comes from the Latin accidentia, the neuter plural of accidens, present participle of accidere ('to happen, fall to'), formed from ad- ('to') plus cadere ('to fall'). The idea is that inflections are the features that 'befall' or attach to a word's root. The word entered English in the early seventeenth century as a technical term of grammar, drawing on the medieval distinction between a thing's substance and its accidents. It shares this Latin root with words such as incident, accident, and cadence.
How accidence is actually used
Accidence belongs to formal, academic register and appears mainly in traditional or historical discussions of grammar; modern linguistics tends to use terms like 'inflectional morphology' instead. The plural 'accidences' is rare and generally avoided.
Easily confused with accidence
Incidence means the rate or frequency at which something occurs, whereas accidence is the study of word inflections in grammar.
An accident is an unexpected mishap; accidence, though sharing the same Latin root, refers exclusively to grammatical inflection.