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

Miners flooded the dusty flats surrounding this area after three Irish prospectors, who had immigrated to Australia in the hopes of making their fortunes, accidentally stumbled across gold while looking for water in 1893. — Justin Meneguzzi, Travel + Leisure, 7 July 2026

Iraq, Canada, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Qatar, Saudi Arabia After accidentally cursing President Saddam Hussein on stage, theater actor Salem convinces a military court of his insanity to escape a death sentence. — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 6 July 2026

In February 2025, Musk admitted DOGE accidentally ended—and then quickly restored—funding for Ebola prevention, saying there was no interruption to programming. — Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 6 July 2026

In a match between Argentina and France, for example, a referee accidentally blew the final whistle six minutes early and had to restart play after protests from the French. — Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 July 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