Contingency

How to spell contingency

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce contingency

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contingency mean?

1. nounA future event or circumstance that is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty, especially one planned for in advance.

Contingency in a sentence

• The manager set aside extra funds to cover any contingency during the project.

• Every emergency plan should account for the contingency of a power failure.

Where does contingency come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb contingere, which literally meant 'to touch on all sides' or 'to come into contact', formed from con- ('together') and tangere ('to touch'). From the idea of things touching or coming together, the verb developed the figurative sense of an event 'falling out' or 'happening to' someone, since chance occurrences were imagined as things that brush against us. Medieval Latin produced the noun contingentia for the quality of being possible without being certain, and English adopted contingency in the late 1500s, at first in this philosophical sense of something that may or may not occur. Over time it settled into its modern, practical meaning: a possible future event you plan for just in case. The same tangere root survives in everyday relatives such as 'tangent', 'contact', and 'tangible', and noticing that hidden 'ting' (touch) can help fix the tricky middle of the spelling.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• ting (touch, from Latin tangere)
• -ency (state or quality)