Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Fortune; chance.
- n. A happening; an occurrence.
- v. To happen.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. That which happens: a fortuitous occurrence; chance; fortune; luck.
- To happen; befall; come by chance.
- To wrap; cover in order to defend from cold, rain, or snow; screen.
- n. A cloak or plaid; a covering. Also called happing.
- A dialectal form of hop.
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive, literary to happen; to befall; to chance.
- v. transitive, literary To happen to.
- n. dialect A wrap, such as a quilt or a comforter. Also, a small or folded blanket placed on the end of a bed to keep feet warm.
- v. dialect To wrap or clothe.
- n. That which happens; an occurrence or happening, especially an unexpected, random, chance, or fortuitous event; chance; fortune; luck.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To clothe; to wrap.
- n. O. Eng. & Scot. A cloak or plaid.
- n. That which happens or comes suddenly or unexpectedly; also, the manner of occurrence or taking place; chance; fortune; accident; casual event; fate; luck; lot.
- v. To happen; to befall; to chance.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an accidental happening
- v. come to pass
Etymologies
- From Middle English hap, happe ("chance, hap, luck, fortune"), from Old Norse happ ("hap, chance, good luck"), from Proto-Germanic *hampan (“convenience, happiness”), from Proto-Indo-European *kob- (“good fortune, prophecy; to bend, bow, fit in, work, succeed”). Cognate with Icelandic happ ("hap, chance, good luck"). Related also to Icelandic heppinn ("lucky, fortunate, happy"), Old Danish hap ("fortunate"), Old English ġehæp ("fit, convenient"), Swedish hampa ("to turn out"), Old Church Slavonic кобь (kobĭ, "fate"), Old Irish cob ("victory"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old Norse happ; see kob- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“O my lord, this hap is what I dreamt last night; and, when I awoke,”
“And Uther with his men drew to the mount, and had lost in the fight his dear knights, full seven hundred-his hap was the worse!”
“Thus happiness, according to the original use of the term, is that which happens, or comes to one by a hap, that is, by an outward befalling, or favorable condition.”
“Wonderful, wasn't it, that it was her "hap" to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz?”
“But at the deliuerie of the monie, and by a certeine kind of hap, the Romans name was preserued at that time from such dishonor and ignominie as was likelie to haue insued.”
“My ire at Spitzer is partly triggered by the embarrassing record of his hand-picked successor, David Paterson, an accidental governor who put the "hap" in "hapless.”
“A culture that discourages its artists from creating bold simulacrums and wild enchantments is one opting for dull, stable sleeps and rote, untransformed wakefulness. john baker: This from Allen Mathews: The word "hap" means luck or ...”
“We need to determine which valid word 'hap' should match.”
“Make . . . the . . . the old folks hap . . . happy?”
“How then had a man so singularly drained of hap as the 57-year-old Israeli ended up controlling Chelsea, Portsmouth and West Ham United?”
The Guardian: Is Avram Grant football's placebo effect? | Harry Pearson
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hap’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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Moby Dick
Words of interest from the book Moby Dick.
arrant, obstreperously, coffer-dam, farrago, rejoinder, counterpane, hamper, commend, grego, dreadnought, psalmody, expostulation and 85 more...
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Incorrectum
Mistakes, Errors and Accidents.
nihilartikel, solecism, bevue, corrigendum, acyrology, cacoepy, fido, hamartithia, jeofail, mésalliance, mumpsimus, pseudochronism and 63 more...
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Whether 'Tis Nobler: Words From Hamlet
nay, 'tis, thee, haste, ho, liegemen, o, hath, holla, entreated, apparition, tush and 104 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young ...
These words are from Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady, 1747-48
adumbrate, virago, varlet, rencounter, akimbo, palliate, amanuensis, amok, equipage, cully, se'ennight, resentments and 560 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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Eocene (Eosin) (Eoscene) (Eoseen) Eng...
Dawn Words in English
swefnum, swefna, secgan, goste, wealhstod, wald-swathu, hearpan, hwaet, leothcraeft, beorhtost, wyrd, dustsceawung and 131 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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H
words starting with h
habituate, hackles, hackneyed, haggard, haggle, halcyon, hale, hallowed, hallucination, halting, hap, hapless and 27 more...
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difficult-list22
gouge, gourmand, gourmet, grandiloquent, grandiose, grapple, gratify, gratis, gratuitous, gratuity, gregarious, grimace and 34 more...
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found
culch, limn, fusty, quailing, gabble, graywacke, marcelled, littoral, scumble, hap, chaff
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In rare form
They make sense. You just don't hear them used much in these ways.
regardful, hypoactive, spiteless, delible, fanciless, digamy, plosion, nocuous, sipid, uttermore, eyesome, feck and 5 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hap.
pomegranate what hapless people do not have Jan 10, 2008
minerva Also fortune, chance. Jan 1, 2008