In my language chance means “şansă” (from French, chance) and always has a positive sense.
If we need to use the negative sense the word changes, taking the prefix “ne” and becomes “neşansă”, kind of “not chance”.
According to this quotation of Peter Benchley’s Jaws “bad luck, like a flash of lightning that hits a house.(…) It was pure chance.”, (page 65), it seems that in English “chance” can be understood in both senses positive and negative, which for me as a non-native is quite odd.
Is there another word in English that can express the negative meaning?
Note:
Taking into account helix’ helpful answer, the word “mischance”, I’m wondering what if the author had used it?
Best Answer
There's a word with a similar construction:
Other candidates: mishap, misfortune, etc.