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

At the time, Affleck allowed Samuel, then 10, to sit in the driver's seat of a bright yellow Lamborghini SUV before the boy accidentally put the car into reverse and backed into a white BMW. — Ashley Hume, FOXNews.com, 12 Oct. 2026

This marked the first instance of the swear word accidentally making an appearance during a live sketch since Sam Rockwell in 2018 (not counting Sabrina Carpenter’s use of the word during a musical performance last year). — Charu Sinha, Vulture, 11 Oct. 2026

On this weekend’s episode, the comedian accidentally dropped an F-bomb while playing the Cat in the Hat’s (Mikey Day) defensive son who is suspicious of Sam I Am (Andrew Dismukes) pressuring him to eat green eggs and ham. — Glenn Garner, Deadline, 10 Oct. 2026

Recently my son-in-law accidentally discovered that he is excluded from his mom’s will. — R. Eric Thomas, Denver Post, 10 Oct. 2026

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