hear it again

: the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not looked for

Example sentence:
Some of history's great scientific discoveries were the result of serendipity rather than research and calculation.

Etymology:
"Serendipity" was coined by Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford (1717-1797), after he read the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip. According to Walpole, the princes in the story "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of." Actually, the princes usually made their discoveries by deduction, but Walpole's interpretation stuck. The "Serendip" in the story comes from the Arabic name for Ceylon, a nation off the southern tip of India that is now called Sri Lanka.