Oh, yes, in the U.S. we use the phrase “It’s a living” in just the same way. It usually implies a job that isn’t particularly exciting or interesting, but is at least honest work and provides enough money to pay the bills.
But you can use it about any type of job in any field. Austen seems to use it exclusively when talking about ecclesiastical positions, which seems slightly different.
Or, what Treppenwitz just said. 
It’s not even all that archaic in North America. I have lived in the US all my life and remember seeing " Situation Wanted" as a category in the newspaper classified ads. (when those still existed). That would have been in the 80s or 90s so my 30 year old children would not remember it but no need to go back to the 19th century.
It still does mean by chance or unintentionally - for example, I know a lottery winner who accidentally picked the winning numbers . She intended to play her usual numbers , wasn’t wearing her glasses and chose a wrong number - lets say she intended to mark 35 but accidentally marked 36. That’s just as accidental as it would be if 35 had been the winning number and her accident prevented her from winning. It’s just that accidentally is more commonly used for unfortunate events 0 I could say I “accidentally ran into” someone , but would probably just say “ran into” as that implies it was accidental. I wouldn’t say I ran into someone if I intended to see them - unless it was “accidentally on purpose”.
That’s what we (Brits) would call a Happy Accident - a mistake which ends in a positive outcome.
The semantic evolution is “lucky” → “innocent” → “naïve” → “foolish”
From Middle English dafte, defte (“gentle; having good manners; humble, modest; awkward; dull; boorish”), from Old English dæfte (“accommodating; gentle, meek, mild”),[1], from Proto-West Germanic *daftī (“fitting, suitable”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₂ebʰ- (“fitting; to fit together”). Related to Old English dafnian, dafenian (“to be fitting, appropriate, or becoming”), Russian до́брый (dóbryj, “good”).
If we can count slang words, a “geek” as I understand it used to be someone who worked in a carnival sideshow basically doing crazy things for money. I’m not sure when it evolved into the current meaning sort of adjacent to “nerd” but not quite the same.
And “dude” used to be an insulting term in 19th century America describing an Easterner who came out West overly fancily dressed. Basically it was synonymous with “dandy”. And it’s now evolved into meaning more or less the opposite.
Goth and the related word Gothic have a long strange history.
The Goths were originally a Gemanic people who invaded the western Roman Empire and controlled parts of Europe in the early Middle Ages.
Later the expression Gothic was used, somewhat disparagingly, to describe the monumental architecture of the late Middle Ages, especially churches like Notre Dame, even though the Goths had disappeared as a cultural group by this time.
In the 1800’s, the term Gothic was used to refer to a style of fiction that features fear and horror as the main elements, mostly famously books like Dracula.
In the 1970s this inspired a style of music called Gothic rock. A subculture developed based on fandom of this music emphasizing dark and exotic dress, and persists to this day.
So a “Goth” has gone from a member of a German tribe to a moody teenager with dark eyeliner.
I always wondered about ‘dude’, as an adjective. The Buford ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen character in Back to the Future Part 3 uses ‘duded up’ to refer to Marty, who sticks out like a sore thumb in 1885 California as he’s been dressed up in what 1955’s Doc Brown thinks is a perfect western disguise.
I’ve always found the metamorphosis of the adjective ‘sophisticated’ interesting: from having a very shady meaning of “manipulative and deceitful” to a very positive “possessing the height of refinement and good taste”.
A “dude” was a city boy playing cowboy. A dude ranch is where such people would take vacation to okay out their fantasies. They would come dressed up in garish outfits that popular culture told them old times cowboys and gunslingers wore, but had nothing to do with how western settlers and ranchers really dressed.
This is an interesting discussion, but I’m not seeing a question here. Let’s try MPSIMS instead.
Moved from FQ to MPSIMS.
Along those same lines, while “entrepreneur” always meant a person who started a business, from what I understand when it first entered the English language it carried the connotation of a shady, dishonest businessman. It was around the Regan era when it picked up its current, positive connotation.
Slut. Slut originally had no sexual connotation. It meant the lowest of the housemaids, often still a child, who’s job it was to empty and clean chamberpots, clean ashes out of fireplaces and re-lay the logs for the next fire.
Gradually, it changed meaning to signify a lazy housekeeper, e.g., the term “slut’s wool” meant what we now call dust bunnies and cobwebs.
The is now a term to mean a woman who likes sex, growing from the fact that the slut in a house, was easy prey sexually, and men of the family in the home where she worked would often take advantage of the fact that the child couldn’t say anything about the sexual abuse, or she’d lose her job.
Interesting, thanks. I’d kind of assumed that Tannen was talking a bit of nonsense or mixing his words up like the 1950s version, but wasn’t sure what the origin of the term was. Seems like he was more accurate than I thought!
“Turtle” was originally the name of a bird.
After the Norman invasion, the French used their word “tortue” to name the shelled reptile. Through folk etymology, the French became “turtle” to match the familiar English word.
In order to prevent confusion, the bird became “turtle dove.”
I believe King James referred to St. Paul’s as “amusing, awful, and artificial.” Amusing, as in pleasing to the senses; awful, as in filling one with awe; artificial as artistic.
As long as are discussing Jane Austen, the word condescension seems to have shifted in meaning. She usually uses it to compliment a higher-status person interacting with a lower-status person graciously, rather than the current meaning of disdain or patronizing superiority.
I just remembered another North America vs. UK example, which I learned from experience. In North America, when we say veteran, we use it pretty much only to mean someone who has been in the military, or in the broader sense someone who has longer experience with being in an organization or institution or specific activity or profession (e.g., a veteran of the competition circuit, a veteran astronomer). But in the UK, it can also be used in the sense of “a senior citizen”.
Nowadays, something that’s “manufactured” is the opposite of “hand-made”, even though “hand-made” is literally what “manufactured” means.
And from Terry Pratchett:
Yeah. It isn’t the meaning that has changed, so much as social attitudes. “Entrepreneur” has always meant somebody who engages in running commercial ventures involving financial risk. It came into English in the eighteenth century when this was socially deprecated; the people concerned had to undertake risky ventures because they had no property off which to live, and because they didn’t have a trade or profession that would enable them to earn enough to live simply by selling their services. So they had to do financially risk things (often, with other people’s money).
A decade or two back, momentarily meant “for a moment”, but now it means “in a moment”.
No, it was Charles II, and he only referred to it as ‘artificial’. No ‘amusing’, ‘awful’, ‘terrible’ or ‘pompous’ in the original quote, those were later embellishments.
Quote Investigator article on the subject.
Willy-nilly is most often used to signify something disorgsanized, haphazard, random, unplanned. Originally it was will-ye nill-ye, whether you like it or not.
Presently has shifted in meaning from right now to in a short while.