What's the difference between fortuitous and serendipitous?

Fortuitous


Definition:

  • (a.) Happening by chance; coming or occuring unexpectedly, or without any known cause; chance; as, the fortuitous concourse of atoms.
  • (a.) Happening independently of human will or means of foresight; resulting from unavoidable physical causes.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Fortuitous withdrawal of therapy and transplant nephrectomy may have been responsible for the patient's survival.
  • (2) Two major facilities of the Western Division of Dow Chemical USA are located fortuitously within an area covered by the population-based California Tumor Registry, which allowed linkage of records to identify incident cancers among 1,403 male workers.
  • (3) The unusual activity of IM effector preparations against HLA-mismatched LCLs arises from fortuitous cross-recognition of allogeneic cells by immunologically specific cytotoxic T cell clones coincidentally expanded in vivo alongside the EBV-specific response.
  • (4) Because there is no known nut site cis to 'trpA, we suggest that the 'trpA segment itself fortuitously contains a nut sequence that is able to function with excess N of any of the types tested and with either NusAEc or NusASal.
  • (5) Because of this phenomenon it is difficult to distinguish whether a given protein's presence in bone is advantageous or merely fortuitous.
  • (6) The enhanced transposition frequency of Tn917-LTV1 and Tn917-LTV3 (about 100-fold in Bacillus subtilis) is believed to be due to the fortuitous placement of vector-derived promoters upstream from the Tn917 transposase gene.
  • (7) According to their different clinical presentations, patients were divided into 4 groups: 1: Documented cancer, 2: Hepatic cirrhosis, 3: Fortuitous ultrasonic detection, 4: Clinical hepatic tumor.
  • (8) The article describes a way to estimate the probability of the clustering being fortuitous.
  • (9) The age correlation was caused only by an attenuated response in the young subjects below 40 years of age and may be fortuitous.
  • (10) The somewhat fortuitous isolation of Nocardia asteroides and its significance are discussed.
  • (11) However, it seems that the reduced incidence of the AUV discovered by a few Italian authors is not fortuitous (genetic factors?
  • (12) It is easy to point to lines that have a fortuitous topicality: knowing chuckles now greet George's admission that "There's a sense in which I even quite like a war", and later suggestion that, if Labour can't beat the Tories, the best solution is to join them.
  • (13) Endobronchial localizations of the granular cell tumours or Abrikossoff's tumour are very rare (6%) but their association with malignant tumours is exceptional and perhaps fortuitous.
  • (14) These T-ALLs may represent a fortuitous transformation of T cell subsets with alternative T3-Ti complexes.
  • (15) Gender identity change in a conservatively diagnosed 21-year-old transexual after faith healing was fortuitously observed, was objectively and independently measured, and is reported.
  • (16) Although the pathogenesis remains unclear, three possible explanations are suggested: disturbance of the pluripotent stem cell resulting in a combined myeloplasmatic disorder, coexistence of two diseases, or a fortuitous association.
  • (17) This tumour was discovered in a systematic fashion in 8 of the 10 cases and fortuitously in one.
  • (18) In addition, we found, fortuitously, that the ligated DNA circles could also integrate by homologous recombination, although usually at a much lower frequency than the Int-mediated integration into attB.
  • (19) Their coexistence in our patient, although the statistic probability is very low, seems to be a fortuitous coincidence more than the result of a common genetic and pathogenetic mechanism.
  • (20) It is not known whether the conversion of a portion of S5 to S5a is physiological or fortuitous.

Serendipitous


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The inappropriate placement of a patient's central venous catheter in the pleural space by the serendipitous injection of Tc-99m labeled red blood cells through the catheter during a GI bleeding study was discovered.
  • (2) Furthermore, serendipitly we found that PIP2-PLC activity was increased in liver membranes from obese patients with type II diabetes when compared to obese and lean controls.
  • (3) This serendipitous observation antedates clinical signs and symptoms of dysphagia.
  • (4) Surprisingly and serendipitously, these studies also revealed genetic heterogeneity of the fibrillin proteins and established linkage between one of these loci and a Marfan-related disorder, congenital contractural arachnodactyly.
  • (5) Finally, the history of the development of understanding of the disease has been a fascinating mixture of parental concern, serendipitous discovery, and correlation of clinical syndromes and serological evaluations across continents.
  • (6) None of us would be here, though, if it wasn't for one serendipitous night four years ago in Stockholm.
  • (7) His charmed team, on salaries of about £350,000, are all getting bonuses: there's Paul Plummer, the strategy director, landing a serendipitous £59,759; Robin "fluky" Gisby, the operations director, and Simon "butter side up" Kirby, the infrastructure projects managing director, who are getting £63,708 each; and, last but not least, group finance director Patrick "the scratchcard wonder" Butcher whose Thank You for Turning Up to Work present this year is £67,658.
  • (8) New compounds can be discovered by screening, modification of existing compounds, rational drug design, and serendipitous basic research observations.
  • (9) Serendipitous findings were especially important in finding fetal anomalies.
  • (10) Included are one case of a "false negative" ABR in a patient with an intracanalicular acoustic neuroma, a case of a "false positive" CT scan in a patient with Meniere's disease, and a case of a patient with normal hearing in whom an acoustic neuroma was discovered serendipitously.
  • (11) Although the diagnosis can be made on physical examination and on plain radiography, it is important to recognize its appearance on CT since it may constitute a serendipitous finding that should be differentiated from more serious diseases that have a similar appearance.
  • (12) The patient serendipitously illustrates a multimodality approach to aortic dissection imaging.
  • (13) The major advantage of electrophysiologic studies over other forms of arrhythmia evaluation, particularly passive monitoring techniques, is the ability to detect the arrhythmia by provocative stimulation techniques, eliminating the need for serendipitous recording of a sporadic event.
  • (14) A serendipitous finding of tonus changes in the frog skin during nerve stimulation is also described.
  • (15) Every brain is different – the serendipitous product of evolution and personal experience.
  • (16) An additional serendipitous finding was a dissociation between two types of tongue movement: licking from a ventrally-located surface survived cortical removal but tongue protrusion did not.
  • (17) Sheehan's syndrome was not produced with massive hypovolemic shock but failure to obtain true pregnancy has given serendipitous information on the long-term action of norlestrin on the pituitary and its target organs.
  • (18) Its origin relates to a serendipitous substitution of water in the London laboratory of Sydney Ringer in the 1880s.
  • (19) We report a completely asymptomatic patient with normal hepatic function whose cyst was discovered serendipitously during sonogram to determine renal size.
  • (20) A serendipitous finding was the dissociation in time between synthesis of anti-GBM antibodies and development of proteinuria, suggesting a role for cellular effector mechanisms in the induction of proteinuria.

Words possibly related to "serendipitous"