What's the difference between incident and accident?

Question

Please quotes examples to enlighten my understanding as when to use incident vs accident.

Answer 1

An incident is any event, like a fist fight.

An accident is one where something or someone gets damaged

Answer 2

An incident is an event that occurs. Sept. 11 is an example of an incident. Your first kiss was an incident.

An accident is when a normal action produces an unpredicted event. A car crash, the discovery of the paste used on Post-it notes, and tripping over your own two feet are all accidents.

All accidents could be described as incidents, but not all incidents are accidents.

Answer 3

An incident is an occurrence, something that happened. It may or may not have been caused by the actions of a person. An accident is an incident which occurred purely by chance i.e. no one was at fault - no-one causes an accident. Incidently, a "road accident" is usually a misnomer, as someone is usually at fault. (the exception being if a tree fell down in the road, for example).

Answer 4

An incident is an event or happening that takes place somewhere or in someone's life. It can be spontaneous (or random) or it can be on purpose (or planned).
Example: "The incident at his sister's wedding made him quick to appreciate the idea of marriage."
"When the baby got sick, the incident scared his mother."

An accident is an event or happening that takes place somewhere or in someone's life that is ALWAYS random, NEVER planned. It often leads to injury or loss.
Example: "She broke the glass."
"The car crashed into the fence."

Helpful?

Answer 5

Incident is simply an event. It doesn't have connotations of bad or good, whereas accident usually has a bad connotation.

Answer 6

incident - something that happened.
accident - something that happened without intentions of happening.

He got into a car accident.
Also correct, but not often used - It was by accident that I found her.

The Michael Vick incident disgust me.