happen upon
happen upon verb: to accidentally encounter a person or situation; to chance upon, happen on or stumble across.
Verb
happen upon (third-person singular simple present happens upon, present participle happening upon, simple past and past participle happened upon)
- To accidentally encounter a person or situation; to chance upon, happen on or stumble across.
- The old haunt that defines “Dragonstone” isn’t Dragonstone, though. It’s the house of that peasant father who took in the Hound and Arya, fed them, and gave them a good night’s sleep only to be robbed. In the present, the Brotherhood Without Banners happens upon the man’s house.2017 July 16, Brandon Nowalk, “Chickens and dragons come home to roost on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club
Forms of happen upon
| third-person singular present | happens upon |
|---|---|
| present participle | happening upon |
| past participle | happened upon |
| past | happened upon |
Questions about happen upon
- What does happen upon mean?
- Happen upon means to accidentally encounter a person or situation; to chance upon, happen on or stumble across.
- What part of speech is happen upon?
- Happen upon is a verb.
- What is the past tense of happen upon?
- The past tense of happen upon is happened upon.
Words near happen upon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: happen upon (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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Cite this entry: “happen upon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/happen_upon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.