chance encounter 1: the unknown and unpredictable element that causes an event to result in a certain way rather than another, spoken of as a real force; 2: separate chains of events have their own casual determinants, but their intersection occurs fortuitous rather then though deliberate plan; 3: the surrealist doctrine of objective chance: the enforced juxtaposition of two completely alien realities that challenges an observer's preconditioned perception of reality.