entgangene

Entgangene is a German attributive adjective derived from the verb entgehen, meaning to escape, slip away, or be missed. When used with a noun, entgangene conveys that something has escaped notice or opportunity and is no longer available or has been overlooked. Typical collocations include entgangene Chancen (missed opportunities), entgangene Gewinne (lost profits), and entgangene Gelegenheiten (missed occasions).

Grammatically, entgangene is the inflected form of the past participle entgangen and declines like other adjectives in legal and formal German. In feminine singular with a definite article, for example, it appears as entgangene Gelegenheit (the missed opportunity). In plural with a definite article it becomes die entgangenen Chancen (the missed opportunities). In plural without an article or with a possessive, you often see entgangene Chancen as well. In predicative use, the form is entgangen: Es ist mir entgangen (It escaped me / I missed it).

Usage notes: entgehen emphasizes that the thing was missed or slipped away, often through circumstances rather than deliberate action. It is commonly used in professional, academic, or formal writing, and can be synonymous with verpasst in many contexts, although verpasst is more colloquial and overtly “missed.”

Etymology: entgehen combines the prefix ent- with gehen (to go), conveying the sense of something going away or slipping out of reach. The adjective form entgangene thus reflects a state arising from that action, applied to a noun in attributive position.