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as in maybe
it is possible perchance he is playing the devil's advocate, and the opinions he has expressed are not actually his own

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of perchance Because any driver worth their salt would figure this out and likely after perchance one time falling into this bit of a roadway trap, would avoid going that way entirely. Lance Eliot, Forbes, 17 Oct. 2021 To sleep, perchance to heal A report in the journal Nature Communications adds to the list of sleep’s benefits. Magnus Wennman, National Geographic, 17 June 2019 To sleep, perchance to dream of a giant plate of nachos. Gray Chapman, SELF, 27 Mar. 2019 Its members liked to call themselves kleagles, goblins and other names of darkling potency, to meet in solemn 'konklaves,' burn a fiery cross upon a distant hill and, perchance, frighten a Negro child outnumbered 100 to 1. The Washington Post, AL.com, 10 Apr. 2018 Ah, to sleep, perchance … to shrink your neural connections? Christopher Wanjek, Scientific American, 3 Feb. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for perchance
Adverb
  • In fact, Thanksgiving, along with Christmas and New Year’s Day, all see an uptick in those dangerous driving habits, but the fourth Thursday of November, when so many families travel long distances to gather together over turkey, stuffing or maybe mac and cheese, sees the most worrisome surge.
    Eric D. Lawrence, Freep.com, 8 Nov. 2025
  • From what might be the world's largest spider web to a dog's unique way of going upstairs, this week's headlines left us speechless, and maybe a bit squirmish.
    Liz O'Connell, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 Nov. 2025
Adverb
  • Second, the large amplitudes of the gravitational waves needed to generate the events that Weber was claiming a detection of would provide more energy than could possibly cosmically exist in any-and-all forms of radiation combined; the Universe as a whole ruled his interpretation out.
    Big Think, Big Think, 7 Nov. 2025
  • Boston Dynamics couples perception (IMUs, cameras, possibly LiDAR) with these controllers to enable rapid reflexive responses.
    Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 7 Nov. 2025
Adverb
  • The 36-year-old's contributions to the Dodgers becoming baseball's first back-to-back champions in a quarter-century likely won't be forgotten for a long time, and perhaps during contract negotiations, will be a present reminder.
    Gabe Smallson, MSNBC Newsweek, 11 Nov. 2025
  • The effects were perhaps best seen in New Jersey, a state with a Hispanic population of nearly 22%, when counties with large Latino populations moved to the left following a rightward shift in 2024.
    Halle Troadec, ABC News, 10 Nov. 2025
Adverb
  • That probably stems from the extraordinary effort his players have produced across this block of fixtures.
    James McNicholas, New York Times, 9 Nov. 2025
  • Newsom’s closure of that highway, where shrapnel actually fell on police vehicles, probably saved both lives and plenty of property damage.
    Thomas Elias, Mercury News, 8 Nov. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Perchance.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/perchance. Accessed 28 Nov. 2025.

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