1A future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.

一份试图为所有可能发生的意外情况未雨绸缪的详细合同。

1. 1.1 A provision for a possible event or circumstance.
   应急措施；应急储备
   stores were kept as a contingency against a blockade

   备好储存品作为对付封锁的应急措施。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • In the critical chain, management reserves (i.e., contingencies such as additional time and budget) are incorporated.
   • The Chinese government only has strategic oil reserve contingencies of 50 million barrels of oil - just 25 days supply.
   • We briefed the game plan and contingencies, grabbed some chow, and walked to the flight deck to a pair of FA - 18s.
   • Before the war in Afghanistan, that area was low on the list of major planning contingencies.
   • Then I make a detailed plan with contingencies, strategies and coping methods.
   • He said that in view of the prevailing drought conditions, the state Agriculture Department had prepared a contingency crop scheme.
   • The campaigner said the contingency engineering plan would offer a legally, economically and environmentally advantageous solution to the current route.
   • Also a small contingency of seats was reserved for emergencies.
   • If the provision of a contingency sum were normal practice, why would the Department of Health see the need to investigate the matter?
   • Cooperative members suggest that the Agriculture State Fund should subsidise the wheat purchase price, while the state contingency reserves should pay higher prices for wheat.
   • The basic structure can be arranged so that these contingencies work for the good of the least fortunate.
   • On a behavior-analytic view, teaching is the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement that expedite learning.
   • And what contingencies are being planned should the war widen to other parts of the region?
   • In its contingency planning, such a force would anticipate issues of coordination with other countries and determine how its activities would be directed on the ground.
   • Blockades are considered and contingencies developed.
   • This component exemplifies a rich schedule with weak contingencies.
   • There had been no provision for contingencies and it was assumed that design fees and site works were in the original library estimates.
   • And we're all actively planning contingencies right now and preparing for if this storm even brushes close to New Orleans.
   • Then it's just a matter of desperate fumbling and trusting to my contingency planning.
   • For example, the uniformed service chiefs in past administrations have been deeply involved in developing war plans and other military contingencies.

   Synonyms

   preparations, plans, planning, prearrangement, arrangements, precautions, precautionary measures, precautionary steps
2. 1.2 An incidental expense.
   应急开支
   allow an extra fifteen per cent on the budget for contingencies

   在预算中额外增加15％作为应急开支。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The actuarial report does not take into account any general or specific contingencies, nor does it provide for a calculation of the loss of employment or pension benefits.
   • We recommended this be done through balanced budgets and the application of any unused contingencies to the debt.
   • Another power industry executive says that his company will consider negotiating with contractors if it can get the contingency and risk money out of the project price.
   • He also urged the government ‘to commit any unspent contingencies and any revenue windfalls to debt reduction.’
   • No matter whom you hire, your budget should include 10 percent for contingencies.
   • They provide a payout based on a contingency, charging a premium for the privilege.
   • If, for instance, a sum of money is payable on a contingency, there is no debt owing or accruing.
   • Running an Internet cafe at his native place with two like-minded youngsters, Thamby has his own funds for meeting contingency expenses.
   • Consultants are jumping in and frightening boards of directors into covering every contingency at huge expense.
   • Because there is a transaction that is occurring, the consequence of which is that the person induced to enter into the transaction is not exposed to a liability to pay money on a contingency.
   • That, as it were, removes or deals with a critical contingency which would make compensation payable, but it is only the first step.
   • So one company found a way to book significant portions of disputed revenue before the contingencies were removed.
   • ‘In every budget we have room for contingencies,’ she said.
   • If you break ground with every finish, every material, and every item specified, you still need a contingency budget.
   • The remaining money will be used for contingencies and on-going communication with the private and public sectors.
   • This problem could be largely solved with emergency funds from the federal budget - a contingency provided for by the architects of the policy.
   • From the news side perspective, the main tool for smoothing earnings was the contingency budget.
   • But it's because we don't know that answer that we've tried to budget very cautiously and to provide for all reasonable contingencies.
   • Review frequency depends on project time constraints, scale, and allocated budgetary contingencies.
   • No, but the consequence of applying contingencies to more profitable restaurants is different from the consequence of applying contingencies to less profitable restaurants.

   Synonyms

   extras, contingencies, odds and ends
3. 1.3mass noun The absence of certainty in events.
   可能性；偶然性；不测，意外
   the island's public affairs can occasionally be seen to be invaded by contingency

   偶尔能看见岛上的公共事务受到意外干扰。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The value of wondering about life is not diminished thereby, but the big quest may amount to ‘confronting the fragility, unpredictability and contingency of life and doing the best we can with it’.
   • This he sees as the latest outworking of a history which involves a ‘collision between contingency and enduring tradition.’
   • The event was briefed, and every contingency was mapped out.
   • Factual truths don't even have any conclusive reason for being what they are, and they could always have been otherwise, i.e. they have unlimited contingency.
   • And cursed myself for not researching this contingency on the Internet.
   • Is history a tale of individual action and decision, of contingency, with vast consequences depending on who is on the spot and what they decide to do?
   • Yet, this same contingency is what leads to the organised liar's defeat, because lying can never be a substitute for the truth.
   • Buckingham uses contingency, the unfixing of meaning and the ephemeral as elements in his own labor process.
   • But at its best, especially in the fiction, there is a fantastic sense of energy, intellectual fearlessness, contingency, reckless dash.
   • Simply, there is nothing to see ‘correctly’; there are only shifting webs of contingency.
   • Apparently when the war plan was presented to the brass, they studied every detail, every contingency, every worst-case scenario, and signed off on it.
   • Well, this does not really matter so much, for the only thing that matters is the free soul within, and that cannot be touched by any contingency.
   • It covers every contingency and of course if investors do wait long enough the ‘good investment in the long term’ will probably sooner or later prove to have been right.
   • This hypothesis is also consistent with evidence that suggests that individuals use their knowledge to guide the selection of events to be used in the computation of contingency.
   • For ethical reasons, it will be difficult if not impossible to create the true response-cost contingency presented to the gambler.
   • Most local headhunters operate on contingency, which means they do not charge or have commitment with the client until they offer the the right executive.
   • A space shuttle contingency has been declared in Mission Control as a result of the loss of communication with the Space Shuttle Columbia.
   • He made an art that was a net to catch contingency.
   • The other is indignation at some historians' recourse to contingency and the counterfactual to unsettle old certainties.
   • Under the umbrella of religious or cultural norms, discrimination is promulgated through the delimitation of cultural contingency.
4. 1.4Philosophy mass noun The absence of necessity; the fact of being so without having to be so.
   〔哲〕偶然性
   Example sentencesExamples

   • What this paradox reveals is that Hegel's position on women is neither a product of contingency nor an effect of ad hoc prejudice.
   • If biology is ruled by contingency rather than necessity then why do we find duplicated designs?
   • Leibniz, in his discussion of contingency, had already recognized that existence is quite different from ordinary predicates.
   • But since contingency and necessity cannot coincide, the moving body has to be different from the principle or source of motion.
   • This may provide a way beyond the generalised extremes of homogeneity and heterogeneity in analysing the necessity and contingency in organisational forms of capital.