Word.ws English Dictionary

happen by

happen by verb: to come across, to chance upon, to find unexpectedly or accidentally.

Verb

happen by (third-person singular simple present happens by, present participle happening by, simple past and past participle happened by)

  1. (US, dated, transitive) to come across, to chance upon, to find unexpectedly or accidentally
    Synonyms:
    happen upon
  2. (US, dated, intransitive) to show up unexpectedly or accidentally

Synonyms of happen by

Forms of happen by

third-person singular presenthappens by
present participlehappening by
past participlehappened by
pasthappened by

Questions about happen by

What does happen by mean?
Happen by means to come across, to chance upon, to find unexpectedly or accidentally.
What part of speech is happen by?
Happen by is a verb.
What is the past tense of happen by?
The past tense of happen by is happened by.

Words near happen by in the dictionary

  1. Happel
  2. Happels
  3. happen
  4. happen across
  5. happen along
  6. happen by
  7. happen on
  8. happen upon
  9. happen'd
  10. happenable
  11. happenchance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: happen by (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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