Coined by Horace Walpole (1754) from the Sri Lanka fairytale, "The Three
Princes of Serendip.

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http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/serendip/about.html


"--- you don't reach Serendib by plotting a course for it. You have to set
out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings ... serendipitously."
(John Barth, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor)

"To put the matter differently, "play" (and its associated behavioral
variability) is not purely entertainment or a luxury to be given up when
things get
serious. It is itself a highly adaptive mechanism for dealing with the
reality that the context for behavior is always largely unknown. (Paul
Grobstein,
Variability in behavior and the nervous system, IN Encyclopedia of Human
Behavior, Volume 4, Academic Press, 1994) 


SERENDIPITY (from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,
3rd Edition)

The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. 

[From the characters in the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of
Serendip, from Persian Sarandip, Sri Lanka, from Arabic Sarandib]

Word history: We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for
coining the word serendipity. In one of his 3,000 or more letters, on which
his
literary reputation rests, and specifically in a letter of January 28, 1754,
Walpole says that "this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I
call
Serendipity, a very expressive word." Perhaps the word itself came to him by
serendipity. Walpole formed the world on an old name for Sri Lanka,
Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of a "silly
fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip; as their highnesses
travelled,
they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things
which they were not in quest of ... One of the most remarkable instances of
this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing
you are looking for comes under this description) was of my Lard
Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Claredon's, found out
the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with
which her mother treated her at table." 

SERENDIPITY (from the Oxford English Dictionary)

f. Serendip, a former name for Sri Lanka + -ity. A word coined by Horace
Walpole, who says (Let. to Mann, 28 Jan. 1754) that he had formed it upon
the title of the fairy-tale he Three Princes of Serendip', the heroes of
which ere always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things
they were not in quest of'.

The faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident. Also,
the fact or an instance of such a discovery. Formerly rare, this word and
its
derivatives have had wide currency in the 20th century.

* 1955 Sci. Amer. Apr. 92/1 Our story has as its critical episode one of
those coincidences that show how discovery often depends on chance, or
rather on what has been called erendipity'-the chance observation falling
on a receptive eye.

* 1971 S. E. Morison European Discovery Amer.: Northern Voy. i. 3 Columbus
and Cabot..(by the greatest serendipity of history) discovered America
instead of reaching the Indies.

* 1980 TWA Ambassador Oct. 47/2 It becomes a glum bureaucracy, instead of
the serendipity of 30 people putting out a magazine.

Hence

SERENDIPITIST

* 1939 Joyce Finnegans Wake 191 You..semisemitic serendipitist, you (thanks,
I think that describes you) Europasianised Afferyank!

* 1968 Punch 13 Nov. 684/1 There are the financial serendipitists, the men
blessed monetarily by a fortunate law.

Serendipitous Links 

       Another Serendip - Sri Lanka 

       And Another - The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe 

       Three Principles of Serendip: Insight, Chance, and Discovery in
Qualitative Research, by Gary Fein and James Deegan (appeared in
       Qualitative Studies in Education, Volume 9, Number 4, 1996) 

       Serendipi ... WHAT?, from Science, Technology, and Society, by Pedro
Gomez-Romero, Materials Science Institute, Barcelona, Spain 

       "Bahramdipty" and Scientific Research, from The Scientist 

       For relaxaton: Serendipity Inn