Happening
adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Something that happens.
"Three follow-up singles, all ecological or religious in theme, did chart in the lower reaches of the Hot 100. Thereafter, Ocean remained a Canadian happening."
- 2 an event that happens wordnet
- 3 A spontaneous or improvised event, especially one that involves audience participation.
"And it was some kind of happening / Some kind of happening / Salvador Dali's garden party"
- 1 present participle and gerund of happen form-of, gerund, participle, present
"From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much.[…] But viewed from high up in one of the growing number of skyscrapers in Sri Lanka’s capital, it is clear that something extraordinary is happening: China is creating a shipping hub just 200 miles from India’s southern tip."
- 1 Busy, lively; vibrant, dynamic; fashionable. slang
"“[…]San Francisco is not exactly the most happening place, you know.”"
- 2 Trendy, up-to-the-minute. slang
"Every show has its hottest, most happening trends. If I were to isolate just one for hardware and one for software, this year's hot hardware would be the 386 machines, and the happening software would be desktop publishing."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Stay informed about what is happening in foreign countries."
Etymology
From Middle English *happenynge, *happnynge. By surface analysis, happen + -ing.
From Middle English happenyng, equivalent to happen + -ing. As term used in performance art popularized by Allan Kaprow.
Related phrases
More for "happening"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.