Serendipity: The Word That Comes From Sri Lanka

Most people know serendipity as one of the loveliest words in English: the happy accident, the good thing found while looking for something else. Far fewer know that the word was built from an old name for Sri Lanka, or that you can stand on the shore of the very island it points back to. Serendipity Lake takes its name from that connection, and it genuinely isn't a coincidence. The resort sits in the country the word was made from.

Serendip, the old name for the island

Long before it was Sri Lanka, and before the British called it Ceylon, Arab and Persian traders crossing the Indian Ocean knew the island as Serendib, or in older spelling, Serendip. The name traces back through Arabic Sarandīb to the Sanskrit Siṃhaladvīpa, roughly "the island of the Sinhala people." Greek and Roman sailors called it Taprobane instead. Serendip was the name that travelled the trade routes west, and the one that would eventually turn into an English word.

How Horace Walpole coined the word

The word serendipity has a precise birthday. On 28 January 1754, the English writer Horace Walpole used it for the first time in a letter to his friend Horace Mann. He said he had formed it from a fairy tale he had read, The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of."

That is still, almost three centuries later, the best short definition of the word: not blind luck, but the particular gift of finding something valuable while looking for something else. Accident and sagacity, the wisdom to notice what you weren't searching for. The tale Walpole drew on was itself far older, a story that had passed through Persian verse before reaching Europe in a printed version in 1557.

Why a lakeside resort carries the name

Serendipity Lake sits on Rathgama Lake, near Hikkaduwa on Sri Lanka's southern coast (in Serendip itself, as it happens). Naming a two-suite boutique lakeside resort serendipity is partly a wink at the word's origin and partly a description of how most guests seem to arrive: not by grand plan, but by accident and good instinct. A fair number came to the south coast for the beach and the surf, took a wrong turn or a friend's tip inland, and found a lake with water on three sides instead. Why the lake is a different kind of stay is the longer version of that story.

It is a small, quiet kind of serendipity, the accidental discovery of a place you weren't looking for. The word was made for it, on this island, a very long time ago.

The story in short

Where does the word serendipity come from? It was coined in 1754 by the English writer Horace Walpole, who built it from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka, after reading the fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip.

What does Serendip mean? Serendip (or Serendib) was the name Arab and Persian traders used for the island now called Sri Lanka. It comes, through Arabic, from the Sanskrit Siṃhaladvīpa, "island of the Sinhala."

What does serendipity actually mean? Making a fortunate discovery by accident, but with the sagacity to recognise its value. Walpole's princes kept finding things they were not looking for, and were wise enough to see what they had found.

What is Serendip called today? Sri Lanka. It was Serendip to medieval traders, Taprobane to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and Ceylon under British rule, before taking the name Sri Lanka.

Come to the island the word was named for

Serendipity Lake is a two-suite boutique lakeside resort on Rathgama Lake, near Hikkaduwa: water on three sides, a private chef, and a great deal of quiet. Book direct for our best available rate, a welcome cocktail for two, and a stocked mini bar at check-in. Browse current offers, send us your dates, or message us on WhatsApp.

Serendipity Team