Incidental property

Overview

In substance theory, an accidental property is any property of an object which is not essential to the object's "substance", i.e. not an essential property.

For example: a chair may be blue, tall, wide or narrow, made of wood or plastic. These properties are not essential to the essential properties which make the object a chair, which might be specified (depending on your definition of "chair") as sittability, stability, and movability.

In modern parlance, we might be more inclined to say "incidental" or "circumstantial" rather than "accidental".

Links

Reference

• Wikipedia: Accidental property, Accident (may soon merge with previous article)