Circumstantial vs Unexpected - What's the difference?
circumstantial | unexpected |
Pertaining to or dependent on circumstances, especially as opposed to essentials; incidental, not essential.
* Sharp
Abounding with circumstances; detailing or exhibiting all the circumstances; minute; particular.
* 1806 , )
* 2007 , John Burrow, A History of Histories , Penguin 2009, p. 326:
Full of circumstance or pomp; ceremonial.
(chiefly, in the plural) Something incidental to the main subject, but of less importance.
Not expected, anticipated or foreseen.
* , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 *
As adjectives the difference between circumstantial and unexpected
is that circumstantial is pertaining to or dependent on circumstances, especially as opposed to essentials; incidental, not essential while unexpected is not expected, anticipated or foreseen.As a noun circumstantial
is (chiefly|in the plural) something incidental to the main subject, but of less importance.circumstantial
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- We must therefore distinguish between the essentials in religious worship and what is merely circumstantial .
- For although my information appears too direct and circumstantial to be fictitious, yet the magnitude of the enterprise, the desperation of the plan, and the stupendous consequences with which it seems pregnant, stagger my belief
- Second-hand but clearly from the best possible source - the King himself - [the story] is highly circumstantial , taking twenty-two pages of text.
Noun
(en noun)- the circumstantials of religion
Antonyms
* essentialunexpected
English
Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.}}
- The windmill presented unexpected difficulties.