happen-so

[hap-uhn-soh]

noun

South Midland and Southern U.S.

1. chance; happenstance; accident.

   Meeting you today was pure happen-so.

Word History and Origins

Origin of happen-so¹

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Baldwin, she argued, “ought to come on back home” and actually live in the South, noting that “his Deep South origins and happen-so birth in Harlem are sufficient for any ancestor-worshiping Southerner to claim him as rightfully our own.”

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Almighty lucky happen-so for him, 'cause I had an old codger aboard that was just on his way to visit Billy.

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All except one little thing about the tracks, and that was done after the murder, and might have been happen-so.

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A wolf track on Broadway would doubtless be the doing of a very large dog, and a St. Bernard's footmark in the Rockies, twenty miles from anywhere, would most likely turn out to be the happen-so imprint of a gray wolf's foot.

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It is a real something, not a mere happen-so or maybe-so.

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