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 toddler's shooting follows a similar incident in December 2024, when a 2-year-old boy in California died after accidentally being shot by his 7-year-old brother inside a truck with a gun found in the vehicle's glove box. —Raven Brunner, People.com, 16 Mar. 2025

Blocks hyperlinks and previews: Protects you from accidentally clicking on hyperlinks or viewing preview images, keeping you safe from malicious websites. —Zak Doffman, Forbes, 16 Mar. 2025

The Death of Stalin actor found himself at the center of an awkward exchange with Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil, and Nate Burleson after a question about his character accidentally exposing his genitalia to his family. —Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 15 Mar. 2025

The worst part of painting windows is the painstaking process of carefully coating the frame without accidentally getting paint on the glass panes. —Kamron Sanders, Better Homes & Gardens, 15 Mar. 2025

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