hap

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hæp/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æp

Etymology 1

From Middle English hap, happe (“chance, hap, luck, fortune”), potentially cognate with or from Old English ġehæp (“fit, convenient”) and/or Old Norse happ (“hap, chance, good luck”), from Proto-Germanic *hampą (“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”), Swedish hampa (“to turn out”), Old Church Slavonic кобь (kobĭ, “fate”), Old Irish cob (“victory”).

The verb is from Middle English happen, from Old Norse *happa, *heppa, from Proto-Germanic *hampijaną (“to fit in, be fitting”), from the noun. Cognate with Old Danish happe (“to chance, happen”), Norwegian heppa (“to occur, happen”).

Noun

hap (plural haps)

1. (slang, in the plural) Happenings; events; goings-on.
   • 2018, Something Fishy (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The Series):

     Katie Griffin as Samantha Sparks: "Hey, Flint. I heard your extended (gasp) earlier. What's the haps?"
     Mark Edwards as Flint Lockwood: "The haps is -- you're not going to believe this, but dad asked me to make him an invention!"

2. (archaic) That which happens; an occurrence or happening, especially an unexpected, random, chance, or fortuitous event; chance; fortune; luck.
   • c. 1580s, Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, book 2:

     Cursed be good haps, and cursed be they that build / Their hopes on haps, and do not make despair / For all these certain blows the surest shield.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, book 2, canto 3, verse 30:

     And whether art it were, or heedless hap, / As through the flowring forest rash she fled, / In her rude hairs sweet flowres themselves did lap / And flourishing fresh leaves and blossoms did enwrap.

   • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 23, column 1:

     Each day ſtill better others happineſſe,
     Vntill the heauens enuying earths good hap,
     Adde an immortall title to your Crowne.

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 3 Scene 1:

     URSULA. She's lim'd, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.
     HERO. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps
     Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

     [I]t hath been many an honest man's hap to pass for the father of children he never begot […]

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick:

     He at once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds.

Synonyms

• (happenings): affairs; see also Thesaurus:occurrence
• (an unexpected, random, chance, or fortuitous event): hazard, serendipity; see also Thesaurus:luck

Derived terms

See also

• what's the haps

Verb

hap (third-person singular simple present haps, present participle happing, simple past and past participle happed)

1. (intransitive, literary) To happen; to befall; to chance.

   Synonyms: come to pass, occur, transpire; see also Thesaurus:happen

   • 1868-9, Robert Browning, “The Ring and the Book”, in Edward Berdoe, editor, The poetical works of Robert Browning, published 1889, page 17:

     "But laudably, since thus it happed!" quoth one: Whereat, more witness and the case postponed. "Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed,....

   • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 81:

     "We must go there to retrieve it before the Krikkit robots find it, or who knows what may hap."

2. (transitive, literary) To happen to.
   • 1891, Elizabeth Stoddard, “No Answer”, in Harper's magazine, page 55:

     What meaneth June, to hap us every year.

Etymology 2

From Old English hap.

Noun

hap (plural haps)

1. (UK, Scotland, Western Pennsylvania) 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.

Derived terms

• hap-harlot

Verb

hap (third-person singular simple present haps, present participle happing, simple past and past participle happed)

1. (dialect) To wrap, clothe.
   • 1859, John Brown, Rab and his Friends:

     The surgeon happed her up carefully.

   • 1899, “Bartonshill Coal Co. v. Beid, 1 Pat. Sc. App. 792, 793.”, in Robert Campbell, editor, Ruling cases, volume 19:

     The practice was, before firing a shot for the purpose of blasting, to give an order to hap the crane, that is, to cover it, in order to protect it from the effect of the shot.

Etymology 3

Shortening of New Latin Haplochromis

Noun

hap (plural haps)

1. Any of the cichlid fishes of the tribe Haplochromini.

Anagrams

• AHP, PAH, PHA, Pha, pah

Albanian

Etymology

From Proto-Albanian *skapa, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kep- (“to cut, split, dig”). Compare English shape, German schaffen (“make, create”). Alternatively from Proto-Indo-European *upo (“up from under, over”). Compare Low German apen, Icelandic opna, Norwegian åpne (“to open”), English open.

Verb

hap (aorist hapa, participle hapur)

1. to open

   Synonym: çel

Conjugation

Derived terms

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɦɑp/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: hap
• Rhymes: -ɑp

Etymology 1

Possibly borrowed from French happer (“to bite, snap”), but both are ultimately imitative either way.

Noun

hap m (plural happen, diminutive hapje n)

1. (often diminutive) bite

   De hond nam er een hap van.

   The dog took a bite of it.

2. chunk
3. (often diminutive) snack, light meal

   Ik heb wel trek in een warme hap.

   I would certainly like a warm meal.

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Papiamentu: hap
• → Indonesian: hap

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

hap

1. inflection of happen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

Irish

Alternative forms

• hop

Etymology

Onomatopoeic

Noun

hap m (genitive singular hap, nominative plural hapanna)

1. hop
2. blow

Declension

Further reading

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “hap”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Entries containing “hap” in New English-Irish Dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• happe, hape, heppe

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Norse happ.

Noun

hap (plural happes)

1. luck (whether good or bad)

Descendants

• English: hap
• Yola: hap

References

• “hap, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish حب (hap), from Arabic حَبّ (ḥabb, “grains, seeds, pills”).

Noun

hap n (plural hapuri)

1. pill (medicine)

Declension

Seri

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʔɑp/

Noun

hap (plural hap)

1. deer

   Synonym: ziix heecot quiih

Derived terms

References

• Moser, Mary B., Marlett, Stephen A. (2010) Comcaac quih yaza quih hant ihiip hac: cmiique iitom - cocsar iitom - maricaana iitom [Seri-Spanish-English Dictionary], 2nd edition, Hermosillo: Plaza y Valdés Editores, →ISBN, page 334.

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English half.

Noun

hap

1. half
   • 1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, Jenesis 1:6:

     Bihain God i tok olsem, “Wanpela banis i mas kamap bilong banisim wara, bai wara i stap long tupela hap.” Orait dispela banis i kamap. God i mekim dispela banis i kamap bilong banisim wara antap na wara daunbilo.

     →New International Version translation

2. part
   • 1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, Jenesis 2:21:

     Orait God, Bikpela i mekim man i slip i dai tru. Na taim man i slip yet, God i kisim wanpela bun long banis bilong man na i pasim gen skin bilong dispela hap.

     →New International Version translation

3. place, one of a few places
   • 1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, Jenesis 1:22:

     Na God i mekim gutpela tok bilong givim strong long ol. Em i tokim ol olsem, “Yupela ol kain kain samting bilong solwara, yupela i mas kamap planti na pulapim olgeta hap bilong solwara. Na yupela ol pisin, yupela i mas kamap planti long graun.”

     →New International Version translation

Adverb

hap

1. there

Derived terms

• hap sankamap

Turkish

Etymology

From Arabic حَبّ (ḥabb, “grains, seeds, pills”).

Noun

hap (definite accusative hapı, plural haplar)

1. pill

Declension

Descendants

• Greek: χάπι (chápi, “pill”)

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English hap, from Old Norse happ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hap/

Noun

hap

1. chance, look
   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 10, page 88:

     Th' hap, an ee ferde, an ee crie, was Tommeen.

     The chance, and the fear, and the cry, was Tommeen.

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 44