Etimology
From Middle English perhappes, perhappous, variant of earlier perhap (“perhaps, possibly”), equivalent to per + hap (“chance, coincidence”) + -s.
adverb
perhaps (not comparable)
Possibly.
(dated) By chance.
Examples
Perhaps John will come over for dinner.
There was a perhaps credible witness.
He was seriously wounded, perhaps fatally.
The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed.
With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.
It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].
[…] will live until he dies perhaps, and then lie down in clover.
Related words
synonyms
bechance
belike
maybe
mayhap
mayhaps
peradventure
perchance
related terms
perhapser
noun
perhaps (plural perhapses)
An uncertainty.
Examples
I cannot conceive what atheism, or skepticism, or positivism could do for me now, with their negations, and endless and contradictory perhapses, and perhapses, and perhapses.