perhaps

An uncertainty.

Adverb

  1. Possibly.
    • Perhaps John will come over for dinner.
    • There was a perhaps credible witness.
    • He was seriously wounded, perhaps fatally.
  2. By chance.
    • […] will live until he dies perhaps, and then lie down in clover. - c. 1850, “Landlord, Fill the Flowing Bowl”:

Origin

From Middle English perhappes, perhappous, variant of earlier perhap (“perhaps, possibly”), equivalent to per + hap (“chance, coincidence”) + -s, on model of Middle English parchaunce (modern perchance).

Forms

perhap

Synonyms

bechance belike maybe mayhap mayhaps peradventure perchance

Related

perhapser

Derived

perhappenstance perhapsy

Noun

  1. An uncertainty.
    • I cannot conceive what atheism, or skepticism, or positivism could do for me now, with their negations, and endless and contradictory perhapses, and perhapses, and perhapses. - 1870, The Missionary Herald, volumes...

Forms

perhapses perhap