“事故”是“incident”还是“accident”？看了你就明白了！

你可能经常在新闻中听到人们用accident和incident来表示某种事件。也就导致我们非常容易混淆这两个词。但其实它们并不完全相同!Incident表示更一般的，而accident则更具体。

Incident /'ɪnsɪd(ə)nt/

Incident can refer to any event big or small, good or bad, intentional or unintentional. A bank robbery, a funny or controversial situation, an argument between celebrities, etc. all can be described as incidents.

Incident可以指任何大事或小事，好的或坏的，有意的或无意的。抢劫银行，有趣或有争议的情况，名人之间的争吵等等，都可以被描述为incident。

例：

I have absolutely no recollection of the incident.

我对那件事一点儿也记不起来了。

Accident /'æksɪdənt/

An accident is a bad event caused by error or by chance. Accidents are always unintentional, and they usually result in some damage or injury. A car crash is one example of an accident. If some equipment malfunctions in a factory and injures the workers, that is also an accident. Examples of very minor accidents are when you step on someone s foot or spill your coffee on someone else. You didn t want or plan to do it.

Accident则是由错误或偶然引起的一件坏事。Accident往往是无意的，它们通常会导致一些损害或伤害。车祸是accident的一个例子。如果工厂的一些设备发生故障，工人受伤，这也是一种accident。还有些非常小的accident的例子，比方说当你踩到别人的脚或把咖啡洒到别人身上。这些事故是你不想做，也并没有打算做的。

例：

His reckless driving accounted for the accident.

他开车鲁莽，引起了这场事故。

辨析

All accidents can ALSO be described as incidents but NOT all incidents are accidents.

所有的accident也可以被描述为incident，但不是所有的incident都是accident。

If a drunk driver runs his car into a group of people, that is an accident (he did not intend to do it; it was caused by alcohol and chance). It could also be described as an incident ( The incident occurred on Main Street at around 2:30 AM ).

如果一个喝醉酒的司机开车撞到一群人，那是一场accident(他不是故意这样做的;这是由酒精和偶然性造成的)。它也可以被描述为一个incident(一个发生在大街上大约凌晨2:30的incident)。

If three people were arrested after fighting in a bar, that is an incident (but not an accident because the fight was not by chance; they intended to fight).

如果三个人在酒吧斗殴后被捕，那就是incident(但不是accident，因为斗殴并非偶然;他们是故意战斗的)。

总结：

incident的范围较广，包含accident

而accident则特指由于错误或偶然发生的事故