peradventure

English

Etymology

From Middle English peraventure, peradventure, from Old French par aventure. Spelling modified as though from Latin. Equivalent to per- ‎ adventure.

Pronunciation

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Adverb

peradventure (not comparable)

1. (archaic) Perchance or maybe; perhaps; supposing.
   • 1554, John Knox, A Godly Letter of Warning or Admonition to the Faithfull in London, Newcastle, and Berwick‎^[1]:

     For be God the Propheit was commandit to stand in the entress of the Lordis house, and to speik to all the cieties of Juda that come to wirschip in the house of the Lord; and was commandit to keip no word aback, gif peradventure, sayeth the Lord, thay will herkin and turne everie man frome his wickit way.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi], page 79, column 2:

     Beſides he tells me, that, if peraduenture / He ſpeake againſt me on the aduerse ſide, / I ſhould not thinke it ſtrange, for 'tis a phyſicke / That's bitter, to ſweet end.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 18:24:

     Peraduenture there be fifty righteous within the citie; wilt thou also destroy, and not spare the place for the fiftie righteous, that are therein?

   • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, chapter 13, in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: […] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], →OCLC:

     It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of warre as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world; but there are many places, where they live so now.

   • 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Third Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 123:

     Often, too, / The pedlar stopped, and tapped her on the head / With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed, / And asked if peradventure she could read.

Noun

peradventure (plural peradventures)

1. Chance, doubt or uncertainty.
   • 1716, Thomas Browne, edited by Samuel Johnson, Christian Morals‎^[2], 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, published 1756, Part I, p. 16:

     Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith; numbs the apprehension of any thing above sense; and only affected with the certainty of things present, makes a peradventure of things to come […]

   • 1800, William R. Thayer, “Woman Suffrage, Pro and Con”, in The Atlantic Monthly‎^[3], volume 65, page 310:

     By his death Bruno did not prove that his convictions are true, but he proved beyond peradventure that he was a true man; and by such from the beginning has human nature been raised towards that ideal nature which we call divine.

Middle English

Adverb

peradventure

1. Alternative spelling of peraventure

References

• “paraventūr(e, adv..”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.