How to Use happenstance in a Sentence

happenstance

noun

• It was an agreeable happenstance that we met.
• We met each other by happenstance.
• Our meeting was pure happenstance.
• The country has been so powerful for so long that many of its capabilities seem to be fundamental constants of the universe rather than happenstance.
  — Daniel W. Drezner, Foreign Affairs, 16 Apr. 2019
• Experts eventually lost track of the statue’s whereabouts—until a recent happenstance discovery.
  — Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 June 2024
• Where a child is born and grows up is a happenstance of birth.
  — Tomiko Brown-Nagin, CNN, 6 Apr. 2022
• For all the time spent planning, so much of life comes down to happenstance.
  — Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 1 July 2019
• What bit of happenstance nudged a La Mesa man to create the sports start-up Meetlete?
  — San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 Feb. 2022
• By happenstance, Chicago played a key role in the group’s rise.
  — Bob Gendron, Chicago Tribune, 13 Nov. 2022
• The best version of L.A. is as a site of meet-cutes and happy happenstance.
  — Richard Villegas Jr., Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2021
• What if judges are swayed as much by the time of day or other happenstance?
  — William Tipper and Taylor Cromwell, WSJ, 8 July 2021
• The Sweet Spot, like so many real bars in the neighborhood, adds noisy charm to the scene and sets the stage for a bit of happenstance.
  — Dallas News, 24 Jan. 2023
• By luck and happenstance, no two of them coveted the same piece of land.
  — Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 10 Aug. 2023
• The researchers were able to deduce in a number of ways that the child's body didn't end up in the cave floor by happenstance.
  — Katie Hunt, CNN, 5 May 2021
• In Olsen’s telling, her five decades with the Peace Corps began quite by happenstance.
  — Jean Marbella, baltimoresun.com, 5 May 2018
• That epiphany was purely happenstance like all the best things.
  — Kristen Shirley, Forbes, 31 Oct. 2021
• As for the timing of both projects taking place back to back, that’s pure happenstance.
  — John Benson, cleveland, 25 Mar. 2021
• Khilwai, the village that fared well, was spared in part because of happenstance.
  — New York Times, 11 July 2021
• And total happenstance, the second video store in the state of Arizona opened up two blocks from my house.
  — Lulu Garcia-Navarro, New York Times, 25 May 2024
• The run of deals is also, in some respects, sheer happenstance.
  — Andrew Beaton, WSJ, 5 Sep. 2018
• Bourgeois said that the above stories were not the result of happenstance.
  — Evan MacDonald, cleveland.com, 22 Dec. 2017
• Chicagoans had the choice: believe their city was destroyed by happenstance, or at the hands of Catherine O’Leary.
  — Joshua Pease, Popular Mechanics, 17 Dec. 2019
• Some of them arise by in a sense happenstance, while others are baked into the pudding.
  — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024
• The ketamine lead only ended up in the right hands by happenstance, said Davis.
  — Katie Palmer, STAT, 5 Aug. 2021
• All three of the lost—Tilly, Sally, and Spook—belong, by pure happenstance, to Kostelnik.
  — Bill Heavey, Field & Stream, 1 Feb. 2024
• It’s been a few years since Mrs. Lenahan had a class pet, but adopting him was more than just happenstance.
  — Hannah Drown, cleveland, 7 Nov. 2022
• By happenstance, the laser light show on the eve of the inauguration fired up the moment the channel went live.
  — Hari Kumar, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2024
• By happenstance, all these people were able to be there in London before the world closed down.
  — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 12 Mar. 2021
• Poirot, on the train by happenstance, sets out to determine which of the passengers was the culprit.
  — Siddhartha Mukherjee, The New Yorker, 22 Feb. 2021
• And the third thing is sort of breaking news, happenstance, people who are admired.
  — Amanda Mitchell, Marie Claire, 11 Apr. 2019

Last Updated: 11 Nov 2024