Both Uses of
incidental
in
A Tale of Two Cities
- An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and counting, and evidently made him uneasy.†
Chpt 2.19 *incidental = something that comes with something else, but is less important than it
- He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never seen.†
Chpt 3.14
Definition:
something that comes with something else, but is less important than it
sometimes in a specialized sense, including:
- incidental expenses or when in context, just incidentals -- minor expenses not budgeted or not specified
- incidental music -- music in a play, television program, radio program, video game or some other form not primarily musical. (The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the film score or soundtrack.)