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# happen

«happen» in Mova's school dictionary: **to take place, to come about: What happened?** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

verb (happen, happens, happened, happening)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To happen is to take place, to come about: What happened? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#m1)

2) To happen to someone is to be the thing they go through: Something funny happened to me. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#m2)

3) To happen to do something is to do it by chance: I happened to see her. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

what is being done to the things or groups («Think: what happens to the groups?»); a study question: picture the change before choosing the operation; in science «what happens if we heat ice?» (predict); in stories events that happen in order

### examples

- Not quite. Think: what happens to the groups? Here we multiply. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x1)
- What happens to the apples when Tom eats 2? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x2)
- What happened at school today? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x3)
- Accidents can happen, so be careful. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x4)
- What happens if we put the ice in the sun? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x5)
- I happened to see your mum at the shop. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x6)
- Something strange happened in the night. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x7)
- And then a strange thing happened. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/#x8)

### note

A study question: picture what happens to the things before choosing. «happen» has no object: say «What happened?», not «What was happened?». Noun «happening» (an event).

### In the corpora

- [Morning sickness is feeling or being sick in early pregnancy, and despite the name it can happen at any time of day.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/18-were-having-a-baby/11/)
- [A miscarriage is when a baby stops growing and dies early in pregnancy; it happens quite often and is nobody's fault.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/18-were-having-a-baby/18/)
- [Different families believe different things about what happens after death, and nobody knows for certain.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/24-when-someone-dies/7/)
- [Asking what will happen first makes it less strange.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/25-funerals-and-remembering/7/)
- [Nothing terrible happened; they were just worn out.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/34-when-grown-ups-are-tired-or-worried/4/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «happen» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/happen/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.