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Perchance; by chance. [Obs.] Chaucer.

x used to signify through, throughout, by, for, or as an intensive as perhaps, by hap or chance; perennial, that lasts throughout the year; perforce, through or by force; perfoliate, perforate; perspicuous, evident throughout or very evident; perplex, literally, to entangle very much.

By chance; perhaps; it may be; if; supposing. "If peradventure he speak against me." Shak. Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city. Gen. xviii. 24.

Perhaps; perchance. [Obs.] Bacon.

By chance; peradventure; perchance; it may be. And pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. Acts viii. 22.

n attorney whose methods are mean and tricky; an inferior lawyer. A pettifogger was lord chancellor. Macaulay.

One that is picked up, as a meal hastily got up for the occasion, a chance acquaintance, an informal game, etc.

ges in his declaration is answered and repelled or justified by the defendant's plea. In chancery practice, a plea is a special answer showing or relying upon one or more things as a cause why the suit should be either dismissed, delayed, or barred. In criminal practice, the plea is the defendant's formal answer to the…

ally, by extreme, remote, or improbable intervention, change, or exercise of power; by a chance; perhaps; as, possibly he may recover. Can we . . . possibly his love desert Milton. When possibly I can, I will return. Shak.

Whatever may chance to be in the pot, or may be provided for a meal. A woman whose potluck was always to be relied on. G. Eliot. To take potluck, to take what food may chance to be provided.

To examine beforehand, as witnesses or evidence. A committee of nine precognoscing the chances. Masson.

That which may be won by chance, as in a lottery.

Likelihood of the occurrence of any event in the doctrine of chances, or the ratio of the number of favorable chances to the whole number of chances, favorable and unfavorable. See 1st Chance, n., 5.

mean of a number), that within which, taken positively and negatively, there is an even chance that the real error shall lie. Thus, if 3" is the probable error in a given case, the chances that the real error is greater than 3" are equal to the chances that it is less. The probable error is computed from the observati…

In English practice, a writ issuing out of chancery in cases where the judges of subordinate courts delay giving judgment, commanding them to proceed to judgment.

A game of chance, in which four sea shells, each called a prop, are used instead of dice.

A finer form of metals, indicated by enhanced lines in their spark spectra (which are also observed in the spectra of some stars), obtained at the highest available laboratory temperatures (Lockyer); as protocalcium, protochromium, protocopper, protonickel, protosilicon, protostrontium, prototitanium, protovanadium. --…

disafforested so as to remit to the former owners their rights. Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spied In some purlieu two gentle fawns at play. Milton.

e and displeasing truths. Atterbury. So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng By chance go right, they purposely go wrong. Pope.

persons pay, in shares, the value of something put up as a stake, and then determine by chance (as by casting dice) which one of them shall become the sole possessor.