Word.ws English Dictionary

happened upon

happened upon is the simple past and past participle of happen upon.

Meaning of happen upon

Verb

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

  1. 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

Questions about happened upon

What is happened upon the simple past and past participle of?
Happened upon is the simple past and past participle of happen upon.

Words near happened upon in the dictionary

  1. happened
  2. happened across
  3. happened along
  4. happened by
  5. happened on
  6. happened upon
  7. happener
  8. happeners
  9. happenest
  10. happeneth
  11. happenin'

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: happened upon (page history and authors); 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: “happened upon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/happened_upon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.