a. rare. [f. L. contingent-em CONTINGENT + -AL.] Of contingent nature, non-essential; as sb. a non-essential.
1647. M. Hudson, Div. Right Govt., II. x. 157. They cannot be ranged amongst the Essentials, but onely the Contingentials of Politick Government.
1865. J. Grote, Explor. Philos., I. 75. The difference between the necessary and the contingent (using this latter term of what we know to be fact—to avoid ambiguity, it might be better to call it contingential).
Hence Contingentialness.
1865. J. Grote, Explor. Philos., I. 80. Contingentialness is in substance the notion of a thing existing as fact.
