What is the meaning of serendipity? Give a good example.?

Answer 1

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.
Noun 1. serendipity - good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries; fluke, good fortune, good luck - a stroke of luck

While searching for some loose change, I found an unexpected 100$ bill in my pocket- what a serendipitous surprise!

Answer 2

Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely. The word derives from an old Persian fairy tale and was coined by Horace Walpole on 28 January 1754 in a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann (not the same man as the famed American educator) an Englishman then living in Florence. The letter read,

"I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table."

Answer 3

Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely

Ex: The microwave oven was invented as a consequence of radar test carried out in England after World War II, when an engineer walked in front of the antenna while it was on and a chocolate bar in a pocket melted

Isaac Newton's famed apple falling from a tree, led to his musings about the nature of gravitation

The discovery of an entirely new continent by Christopher Columbus, who was actually looking for a new way to India

Answer 4

Literally, finding good in unexpected places, but I think it also means being in harmony with yourself and your surroundings when you don't expect it. Serendipity is seeing a rainbow after a thunderstorm, finding the first wild strawberry when all the ones around it are still green. It's hard to explain .

Answer 5

A very good coincidence, often leading to something really awesome.

It was serendipity that I put one quarter in the gumball machine and three came out. :-)