anticoincidence
|an-ti-co-in-ci-dence|
🇺🇸
/ˌæn.ti.koʊˈɪn.sɪ.dəns/
🇬🇧
/ˌæn.ti.kəʊˈɪn.sɪ.dəns/
not occurring together; against coincidence
Etymology
'anticoincidence' originates from Modern English, formed from the prefix 'anti-' (from Greek 'anti') and the noun 'coincidence' (from French 'coïncidence' < Latin 'coincidentia'), where 'anti-' meant 'against' and Latin 'co-' meant 'together' while 'incidere' meant 'to fall upon'.
'anticoincidence' developed from the hyphenated form 'anti-coincidence' used in technical contexts; 'coincidence' itself came into English via French 'coïncidence' from Latin 'coincidentia', and the compound was later written as a single word in some usages.
Initially the components meant 'against' + 'occurring together' (i.e. 'opposed to coincidence' or 'not coinciding'), but over time the term acquired a specialized technical sense meaning 'a circuit or arrangement that rejects simultaneous signals', especially in radiation and particle detection.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a device, circuit, or arrangement used to reject or ignore signals that occur simultaneously (coincidentally) with signals in another detector; commonly used in radiation and particle detectors to reduce background counts.
The gamma-ray detector used an anticoincidence circuit to reduce background counts.
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Noun 2
the lack of coincidence or agreement; the condition of not occurring at the same time or not corresponding.
There was a clear anticoincidence between their accounts of the event.
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Last updated: 2025/08/29 15:33