From the word independent, which means being able ot stand alone, that is the absence or presence of one has no impact on the outcome of each phenomenon. Two events A and B are said to be independent, if the occurence of one has no bearing on the probability or chance that B will occur. This means that each event occurs without reliance on the occurence of the other. This is different from mutually exclusive event whereby event A has direct bearing in the probability of the occurence of event B.
