accidentally

adverb

ac·​ci·​dent·​al·​ly ˌak-sə-ˈdent-lē  -ˈden-tᵊl-ē 

: in an accidental or unintended manner : by accident

I accidentally deleted the file.

The lock prevents the gate from opening accidentally.

Six lionfish were accidentally released from a home aquarium in Biscayne Bay, Fla., during Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

—Alcestis Cooky Oberg

The Olympic test was thrown out after the test lab accidentally destroyed the backup sample … that's required to confirm a positive result.

—Christie Aschwanden

He bumped into her accidentally on purpose. [=he bumped into her intentionally but he tried to make it appear to be an accident]

Examples of accidentally in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Workforce Risk No One Briefed You On Most insider threat programs were built for a specific problem like the employee who shares credentials, accidentally exposes data or leaves with proprietary files, but that’s not the reality of today. — Steve Wilson, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2026

And while there’s fun to be had with the premise of the three characters constantly and accidentally switching places — most often in the middle of a space fight) — the meandering script unfortunately tries to do too much. — Ew Staff, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Aug. 2026

Visibility wasn’t exceptional, but neither was the likelihood of accidentally assaulting an oncoming driver’s eyes. — Matthew MacConnell, ArsTechnica, 3 Aug. 2026

In 2023, a bombing accidentally killed eighty-five people during a Muslim religious festival in Kaduna. — Alexis Okeowo, New Yorker, 3 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for accidentally

• detrimentally
• fundamentally
• governmentally
• incidentally
• incrementally
• instrumentally
• sentimentally
• temperamentally
• coincidentally
• environmentally
• experimentally
• mentally