happen
Americanverb (used without object)
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happens,
present (3rd person singular)
-
happened,
past participle, past
-
happening
present participle
-
to take place; come to pass; occur.
Something interesting is always happening in New York.
- Synonyms:
- betide
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to come to pass by chance; occur without apparent reason or design.
Don't ask me what caused it—it just happened, that's all.
-
to have the fortune or lot (to do or be as specified); chance.
I happened to see him on the street.
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to befall, as to a person or thing.
Something dreadful has happened to me.
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to meet or discover by chance (usually followed by on orupon ).
to happen on a clue to a mystery.
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to be, come, go, etc., casually or by chance.
My friend happened along.
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Slang. to be very exciting or interesting.
That party was happening!
verb
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(intr) (of an event in time) to come about or take place; occur
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(of some unforeseen circumstance or event, esp death), to fall to the lot (of); be a source of good or bad fortune (to)
if anything happens to me, it'll be your fault
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(tr) to chance (to be or do something)
I happen to know him
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(tr; takes a clause as object) to be the case, esp if by chance, that
it happens that I know him
adverb
Usage
What is a basic definition of happen? Happen means to occur, to come to pass by chance, or to befall someone or something. Happen has several other senses as a verb. Happen is a very general word that simply means to occur or take place. For example, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln happened on April 15, 1865. That date is when this event took place.
- Real-life examples: Halloween happens on October 31. Scientists run experiments to see what happens. Nobody knows what will happen in the future. History is a record of what happened in the past.
- Used in a sentence: The police blocked off the street where the car accident happened.
- Used in a sentence: Joe happened to be standing in the exact spot where the water balloon landed.
- Used in a sentence: Sherri was terrified that something horrible had happened to her kitten.
- Used in a sentence: Summer is usually busy with happenings like beach parties. Summertime is happening!
Synonym Usage
Happen, chance, occur refer to the taking place of an event. Happen, which originally denoted the taking place by hap or chance, is now the most general word for coming to pass: Something has happened. Chance suggests the accidental nature of an event: It chanced to rain that day. Occur is often interchangeable with happen, but is more formal, and is usually more specific as to time and event: His death occurred the following year.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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happensimple
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happenssimple
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have happenedperfect
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has happenedperfect
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am happeningprogressive
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are happeningprogressive
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is happeningprogressive
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have been happeningperfect progressive
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has been happeningperfect progressive
Past
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happenedsimple
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had happenedperfect
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was happeningprogressive
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were happeningprogressive
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had been happeningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of happen
First recorded in 1300–50, happen is from the Middle English word hap(pe)nen. See hap 1, -en 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Hardships can happen to any person at any time, at any place," he said, adding "we will move forward".
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
Delays sometimes happen if soldiers aren’t trained, or if the communications parts, made by a separate company, have glitches, he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026
“The trick to options trading is, did the underlying move happen quickly enough to defeat your decay,” Sosnick said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 10, 2026
"That mustn't happen again in the 21st Century."
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
“No? What do you mean? No, it’s not going to happen? Or just no, not yet?”
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
The finding, demonstrated in mice, offers scientists a new way to investigate how the eye protects its delicate tissues and what happens when waste removal is disrupted.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026
“If we look on our payment system, it happens to be that we have two credit cards that are from the same country, the U.S.,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026
“But I do think it’s important to keep whatever happens this year in perspective.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
Vote Safe organizers stress that their own volunteers will be unarmed and nonpartisan, and say their purpose is not to confront officials but to provide a familiar presence and record what happens.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
“As it happens, I didn’t have to come here,” Miss Genovese says dryly.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
"This is the pioneering study showing that polyethylene can contribute to fatty liver disease and the use of spatial transcriptomics has determined exactly where the damage has happened within the liver," Joshi said.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026
That happened twice after Aviva was purchased by Athene, an insurer backed by private-asset giant Apollo Global Management.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
"This is a devastating time for all those affected by what has happened overnight," said Det Insp Katie Gregory.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
But there isn’t even a word for what happened Friday when a once-obscure board canceled a meeting to decide the future of homeless services in Los Angeles because too many people came to vote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026
It explains what happened to our knowledge of the brain as a result.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
While existing UK-wide guidelines, external say doctors should already do this, Smith said updated and better-publicised screening tools are "really important" because research suggests this is routinely not happening.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
"Although it is happening in the Middle East, it affects us here now," she said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 10, 2026
To investigate whether this was actually happening, the researchers created computer simulations of the system.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 10, 2026
It is hard to imagine Nvidia’s five-year CDS reflecting much credit risk, given how much revenue and earnings have grown in recent years and the stock’s resilience, but that is exactly what’s been happening.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 10, 2026
Strange things were happening to them, especially when I dived.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
