mayhap

adverb·/ˈmeɪ.hæp/

Perhaps; possibly. An old-fashioned, lightly whimsical way of letting uncertainty into a sentence. Where maybe is casual, mayhap feels like a small courtesy to chance.

Mayhap we’ll meet again, she said, as if the future were a door left politely ajar.

Etymology

From Middle English may hap “it may happen,” a compression of modal and event into one airy word. The phrase fossilized into an adverb that still sounds like possibility arriving on tiptoe.

Related Words

perhapsthe standard equivalent
perchanceanother archaic “perhaps,” slightly more formal
hapchance; surviving in *hapless* and *happen*
fortuitoushappening by chance; more Latinate