Meaning

noun a possibility due to a favorable combination of circumstances

noun an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another

noun a risk involving danger

originFrom Middle English chance, cheance, chaunce, cheaunce, a borrowing from Old French cheance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadere (“to fall, to die, to happen, occur”). Doublet of cadence and cadenza.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0