What is the proper adjective to use with the word chance? Can chance be low, small, slim? What would be your suggestion?
1 Answer
All three are grammatical and idiomatic. A chance can be all of these things, and more. The top 50 collocations from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the British National Corpus (BNC) look as follows:
COCA BNC
1 a good chance 1403 a good chance 274
2 a better chance 1059 a better chance 173
3 a fair chance 218 a fair chance 56
4 a real chance 189 a great chance 47
5 a greater chance 133 a real chance 32
6 a great chance 127 a reasonable chance 31
7 a reasonable chance 103 a greater chance 27
8 a decent chance 72 a realistic chance 24
9 a rare chance 61 a new chance 18
10 a slim chance 59 a rare chance 14
11 a big chance 56 a slim chance 13
12 a small chance 53 a glorious chance 12
13 a realistic chance 46 a sporting chance 11
14 a strong chance 46 a small chance 10
15 a new chance 43 a strong chance 10
16 a slight chance 36 a high chance 9
17 a final chance 29 a further chance 9
18 a serious chance 26 a unique chance 9
19 a legitimate chance 25 a big chance 7
20 a higher chance 25 a lucky chance 7
21 a remote chance 23 a remote chance 6
22 a once-in-a-lifetime chance 19 a marvellous chance 6
23 a significant chance 18 a fine chance 5
24 a sporting chance 18 a final chance 5
25 a unique chance 18 a wonderful chance 5
26 a fresh chance 13 a proper chance 4
27 a high chance 13 a higher chance 4
28 a golden chance 11 a happy chance 4
29 a solid chance 11 a simple chance 4
30 a better-than-average chance 10 a slight chance 4
31 a better-than-even chance 9 a reduced chance 3
32 a fine chance 8 a golden chance 3
33 a huge chance 8 a decent chance 3
34 a single chance 8 a fat chance 3
35 a little chance 7 a fresh chance 3
36 a low chance 7 a useful chance 3
37 a perfect chance 7 a winning chance 3
38 a wonderful chance 7 a brief chance 2
39 a genuine chance 6 a close-range chance 2
40 a poor chance 6 a full chance 2
41 a terrific chance 6 a fucking chance 2
42 a tiny chance 6 a genuine chance 2
43 a large chance 5 a little chance 2
44 a full chance 5 a low chance 2
45 a fat chance 5 a missed chance 2
46 a bigger chance 5 a once-in-a-lifetime chance 2
47 a major chance 5 a poor chance 2
48 a missed chance 5 a mathematical chance 2
49 a nice chance 5 a slender chance 2
50 a brief chance 4 a straightforward chance 2
These usage stats suggest that overall, slim is somewhat preferred over small, and both are clearly preferred over low, on both sides of the pond. Further candidates range from poor to little to remote to slender to once-in-a-lifetime, but see for yourself. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which of these does or does not fit their particular context, especially as no particular context is supplied in this question.
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If you use little chance, note that it doesn't take the indefinite article like most of these constructions do. May 19, 2013 at 20:38