chanced upon
Found by accident
Chanced upon means encountered by accident or without planning.
You might chance upon an old friend at the grocery store, or chance upon a rare book in a secondhand shop: I chanced upon some old letters while cleaning the attic.
The phrase emphasizes luck or happenstance rather than deliberate seeking.
- happenstanceUnplanned circumstance
- stumbled acrossFound without searching
- coincidentalOccurring together by luck
- came acrossFound unexpectedly
- serendipitousFortunately coincidental
happy accident · fortuitous · unearthed · providential · found · ran into · bumped into · noticed · glimpsed · unforeseen · lucky · located · unplanned · spotted · detected · observed · perceived · discerned
- found synonymsfound, discovered, uncovered, unearthed, located
intentionality of discovery
chanced upontracked down
Found by following leads
looked for · pursued · researched · targeted · investigated
mode of acquisition
chanced upondug up
Extracted from ground
rooted out · cultivated · engineered · manufactured · arranged