Acceptance Ac·cept"ance noun 1. The act of accepting; a receiving what is offered, with approbation, satisfaction, or acquiescence; esp., favorable reception; approval; as, the acceptance of a gift, office, doctrine, etc. They shall come up with acceptance on mine altar.
Isa. lx. 7.
2. State of being accepted; acceptableness. "Makes it assured of
acceptance ."
Shak. 3. (Com.) (a) An assent and engagement by the person on whom a bill of exchange is drawn, to pay it when due according to the terms of the acceptance. (b) The bill itself when accepted. 4. An agreeing to terms or proposals by which a bargain is concluded and the parties are bound; the reception or taking of a thing bought as that for which it was bought, or as that agreed to be delivered, or the taking possession as owner. 5. (Law) An agreeing to the action of another, by some act which binds the person in law. » What acts shall amount to such an
acceptance is often a question of great nicety and difficulty.
Mozley & W. » In modern law,
proposal and
acceptance are the constituent elements into which all contracts are resolved.
Acceptance of a bill of exchange ,
check ,
draft , or
order ,
is an engagement to pay it according to the terms. This engagement is usually made by writing the word "accepted" across the face of the bill. Acceptance of goods ,
under the statute of frauds, is an intelligent acceptance by a party knowing the nature of the transaction. 6. Meaning; acceptation. [ Obsolete]
Acceptance of persons ,
partiality, favoritism. See under Accept .
Accessory Ac·ces"so·ry (#; 277)
adjective [ Latin
accessorius . See
Access , and confer
Accessary .]
Accompanying as a subordinate; aiding in a secondary way; additional; connected as an incident or subordinate to a principal; contributing or contributory; said of persons and things, and, when of persons, usually in a bad sense; as, he was accessory to the riot; accessory sounds in music. » Ash accents the antepenult; and this is not only more regular, but preferable, on account of easiness of pronunciation. Most orhoëpists place the accent on the
first syllable.
Syn. -- Accompanying; contributory; auxiliary; subsidiary; subservient; additional; acceding.
Accidental Ac`ci·den"tal adjective [ Confer French
accidentel , earlier
accidental .]
1. Happening by chance, or unexpectedly; taking place not according to the usual course of things; casual; fortuitous; as, an accidental visit. 2. Nonessential; not necessary belonging; incidental; as, are accidental to a play. Accidental chords (Mus.) ,
those which contain one or more tones foreign to their proper harmony. --
Accidental colors (Opt.) ,
colors depending on the hypersensibility of the retina of the eye for complementary colors. They are purely subjective sensations of color which often result from the contemplation of actually colored bodies. --
Accidental point (Persp.) ,
the point in which a right line, drawn from the eye, parallel to a given right line, cuts the perspective plane; so called to distinguish it from the principal point, or point of view, where a line drawn from the eye perpendicular to the perspective plane meets this plane. --
Accidental lights (Paint.) ,
secondary lights; effects of light other than ordinary daylight, such as the rays of the sun darting through a cloud, or between the leaves of trees; the effect of moonlight, candlelight, or burning bodies. Fairholt. Syn. -- Casual; fortuitous; contingent; occasional; adventitious. --
Accidental ,
Incidental ,
Casual ,
Fortuitous ,
Contingent . We speak of a thing as
accidental when it falls out as by chance, and not in the regular course of things; as, an
accidental meeting, an
accidental advantage, etc. We call a thing
incidental when it falls, as it were,
into some regular course of things, but is secondary, and forms no essential part thereof; as, an
incremental remark, an
incidental evil, an
incidental benefit. We speak of a thing as
casual , when it falls out or happens, as it were, by mere chance, without being prearranged or premeditated; as, a
casual remark or encounter; a
casual observer. An idea of the unimportant is attached to what is
casual .
Fortuitous is applied to what occurs without any known cause, and in opposition to what has been foreseen; as, a
fortuitous concourse of atoms. We call a thing
contingent when it is such that, considered in itself, it may or may not happen, but is dependent for its existence on something else; as, the time of my coming will be
contingent on intelligence yet to be received.
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