accidentally on purpose

alternative accidentally-on-purpose

1. not comparableDeliberately, though apparently accidentally.

   “Or maybe,” Jack added, “her mother accidentally on purpose lost it.”

   2008, Karen White, The House on Tradd Street

   3 more examples

   However, having accidentally-on-purpose got hold of a piece of the fish, down it went; and, apparently thinking that under the circumstances he might do worse, he set to work with no ill-will or appetite, and soon got through a good part of a haddock.

   1860, Cornwall Simeon, Stray Notes on Fishing and Natural History, page 159

   What do you suppose she meant when she said, what had she done? Eh? Maybe it come to her then as she might have left them keys about, accidental on purpose.

   1937, Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

   When a buffalo charges at her husband, Margot, directly in back of him and standing up in Wilson's open car, fires toward the buffalo and kills Francis — whether accidentally, on purpose, or accidentally on purpose, H. leaves ambiguous.

   2003, The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature, edited by Steven R. Serafin and Alfred Bendixen, page 512 (entry "Hemingway")