Wiktionary
vb. (context transitive idiomatic English) to find by chance
WordNet
v. find unexpectedly; "the archeologists chanced upon an old tomb"; "she struck a goldmine"; "The hikers finally struck the main path to the lake" [syn: fall upon, strike, come upon, light upon, come across, chance on, happen upon, attain, discover]
Usage examples of "chance upon".
It was, I supposed, basely possible we'd chance upon something worth finding before our oxygen ran out.
Good luck to you all, and if in your travels you chance upon the perfect pommes frites, double lock your bedroom door when you retire to your room for the night.
And the young man that told him said, As I happened by chance upon mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear.
Here was a man about whom there could be no mistake: a man of an unquestionable and unassailable manner, in apple-pie order, dressed not with neatness merely but elegance, ready with his passport, at a word, and well supplied with money: a man the Commissary would have doffed his hat to on chance upon the highway.
I didn't that night chance upon Cornelius till I had had it out with the girl.
Diverging thence he came by chance upon his inn, where he found that his host and his comrades had been anxious about him all night.
I was in motley, for a masquerade from which I had slipped away, bored and restless, and was roaming in search of whatever escapade I might chance upon.