incidentally

adverb

in·​ci·​den·​tal·​ly ˌin(t)-sə-ˈden-tᵊl-ē 

 especially for sense 2  -ˈdent-lē

1

: in an incidental manner : not intentionally

the arrant nonsense of some of his statements is incidentally hilarious

—John Lahr

2

: by way of interjection or digression : by the way

fortunate in having a good teacher … —still living, incidentally

—John Fischer

Synonyms

• apropos
• en passant

Examples of incidentally in a Sentence

Not incidentally, the market slump was followed by widespread layoffs.

incidentally, have you seen the new building they're putting up?

Recent Examples on the Web

His ministry preferred to measure trafficking attempts, which, incidentally, were on the rise. —Ed Caesar, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2024

Newsom, not incidentally, appoints all CARB board members and can fire them anytime. —Thomas Elias, The Mercury News, 1 Nov. 2024

Not just incidentally, Tan now has all of the general managers of VMware’s lines of business reporting directly to him. —Patrick Moorhead, Forbes, 4 Sep. 2024

Rich, incidentally, recently came to a performance of McNeal. —Christopher Barnard, Vogue, 17 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1665, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

incidentally

adverb

in·​ci·​den·​tal·​ly ˌin(t)-sə-ˈdent-ᵊl-ē 

 especially for sense 2  -ˈdent-lē

1

: in an incidental manner

discusses the problem only incidentally

2

: apart from that : by the way

a one-room school—still standing, incidentally—which was painted red