- present participle of happen.
happening
Americannoun
-
happenings
plural
noun
-
an occurrence; event
-
an improvised or spontaneous display or performance consisting of bizarre and haphazard events
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of happening
First recorded in 1545–55; 1965–70 happening for def. 2; happen + -ing 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:
“And that is what is happening to Natalie.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
Good Good’s executives said that they planned to donate sales of the driver to a local women’s organization, and that they had implemented more rigorous protocols to prevent such missteps from happening again.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026
Metabolites can provide a snapshot of what is happening inside cells, making them useful for detecting biological patterns that may be connected to health and aging.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 29, 2026
"That is the question that everybody is asking, is how do we prevent something like this from happening in the future," Griffen said, adding that mothers need to be connected with better resources.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
I can barely fathom that it’s happening at all.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
“This is so fun,” April Zhang-Autio, who often attends art happenings around the city, said while wandering from a cabana area to a merch booth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
What makes “Recession” so vivid, and so unsettling, is that Mr. Goodspeed rarely finds recessions caused by a single one of these shocks, but by a series of adverse happenings over a short period.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
The litigation unveiled the private happenings of Hollywood elite, including texts and emails from Lively, Baldoni and their host of A-list friends.
From BBC ● May 4, 2026
Neither can most memoirs, but, at 85 years, Atwood’s valediction to readers shares “many strange happenings, incidents of malice, odd dreams, conversations, joyful moments, ghosts, stupid mistakes, and catastrophes.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2025
Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
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.
