Chance’s senses, negative and positive

Question

In my language chance means “şansă” (from French, chance) and always has a positive sense.

If we need to use the negative sense the word changes, taking the prefix “ne” and becomes “neşansă”, kind of “not chance”.

According to this quotation of Peter Benchley’s Jaws “bad luck, like a flash of lightning that hits a house.(…) It was pure chance.”, (page 65), it seems that in English “chance” can be understood in both senses positive and negative, which for me as a non-native is quite odd.

Is there another word in English that can express the negative meaning?

Note:

Taking into account helix’ helpful answer, the word “mischance”, I’m wondering what if the author had used it?

Answer 1

There's a word with a similar construction:

mischance.

• Bad luck

• An unlucky occurrence

_{Etymology: (Old French) mescheance}

Other candidates: mishap, misfortune, etc.

Answer 2

I don't speak French so I make no claim to understanding the meaning and connotations of the French words you use. But in English, "chance" is neither negative nor positive, but is understood to mean that the results could go either way. That is, if you say, for example, "I took a chance when I hired Bob", the word "chance" here indicates that hiring Bob may turn out well for you or it may turn out badly. If you were quite confidant that it would turn out well, you wouldn't describe it as "taking a chance", by definition. If you just took it for granted that Bob would be a good employee, you wouldn't say you were taking a chance when you hired him. You might say, "I made a good decision when I hired Bob" or something of that sort.

Answer 3

We have the same in Swedish. A chance in something positive, although many people use it wrong, I guess the English has made an impact on the usage. The negative version of chance, is at least in Sweden a "risk". There is a risk that you get cancer.... For example..