perchance
advUK /ˌpɜːˈtʃɑːns/ · US /ˌpɜɹˈtʃæns/
Etymology From Middle English parchaunce, from Old French par cheance (“by chance”).
- You wouldn't, perchance, have a bottle opener on you, would you?
- Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him[…]1624, John Donne, chapter XVII, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC:
2 more examples
- “Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are / So lightly, beautifully built: / Perchance I may return with others there / When I have purged my guilt.”1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Palace of Art”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 154:
- A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, / Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned / That brushed my cap—perchance the guide I sought.1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, section XXVII: