contingent
adjEtymology From Middle English, from Old French contingent (whence con- and -ent), from Medieval Latin contingens (“possible, contingent”), present participle of contingere (“to touch, meet, attain to, happen”), from com- (“together”) + tangere (“to touch”).
1
Possible or liable, but not certain, to occur.
2
With upon or on Dependent on something that is undetermined or unknown, that may or may not occur.
- The success of his undertaking is contingent upon events which he cannot control.
- a contingent estate
3 more examples
- The imposition of the death penalty should not be contingent on a particular jury's unguided understanding of a legal term of art.1989, Thurgood Marshall, “Dissenting Opinion”, in Watkins v. Murray:
- This rather narrow theological dispute eventually helped eradicate from Western philosophy the idea of universals—the notion that concepts in the mind correspond to eternal truths, like the Platonic forms—and succeeded in making the world, as Blumenberg puts it, “radically contingent.”2021, Meghan O'Gieblyn, quoting Hans Blumenberg, chapter 11, in God, Human, Animal, Machine […] , →ISBN:
- Both Catalan parties have said their support for getting the PSOE back into office will be contingent on an amnesty for the hundreds of people who participated in the failed push to secede from Spain in October 2017.2023 November 5, Sam Jones, “PSOE members back Catalan amnesty plan to secure power in Spain”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
3
Not logically necessarily true or false.
4
Temporary.
- contingent labor
- contingent worker
- Antonyms
- noncontingent
- Derived terms
- contact, contingence, contingency, contingentism, contingently, contingentness
- Related terms
- contingent charge, contingent claim, contingent remainder, contingent symbiosis, contingent valuation