How to use happen in a sentence
40 example sentences · verb, adverb
Happen means to occur or take place. Example: “Let me tell you how it happened.”
Examples of happen by meaning
verbTo occur or take place.
- Let me tell you how it happened.
- Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21
verbTo do or occur by chance or unexpectedly.
- Take an umbrella in case it happens to rain.
- Do you happen to have an umbrella?
- If you should (happen to) need any help, I'll be there.
adverbMaybe, perhaps.
- Yeah, well happen if he'd gone quietly, she wouldn't have needed to show him who's in charge.2016, Sally Wainwright, Happy Valley, spoken by Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), Manchester: Red Production Company; distributed by BBC...
More sentences with happen
- It must be broken, because I pressed the button and nothing happened.From the entry because
- You need to write down what happened while it's still fresh in your mind.From the entry down
- That's when we burn the mark, and we'll be gone before he knows what happened.From the entry burn
- Let’s make sure we don’t forget proper punctuation, let's not let those mistakes happen again.From the entry let's
- I’ll tell you what happened, but first let me set the scene.From the entry set
- His experience showed, because he knew exactly what to do when the emergency happened.From the entry show
- The pronoun "it" in "It's a mystery why this happened" is a dummy.From the entry dummy
- We were at the same college, but happened never to meet.From the entry never
- I regret that it should have happened, but I was really shocked that he should say that.From the entry should
- Switches only happen once every couple weeks for us, but they're quite sudden when they happen.From the entry switch
- Put a little baking soda in some vinegar and watch what happens.From the entry watch
- I have a feeling something good is going to happen today.From the entry something
- Throwing that punch was a murder whether you meant for it to happen or not.From the entry murder
- After what happened at the wedding, I wouldn't blame you if you never spoke to them again.From the entry blame
- The memory leak happened because we forgot to destroy the temporary lists.From the entry destroy
- I heard an almighty crash and ran into the kitchen to see what had happened.From the entry almighty
- He sketched the accident, sticking to the facts as they had happened.From the entry sketch
- Despite all the terrible things that happened to her, she never wavered from her beliefs.From the entry waver
- The schism between Sunnis and Shias happened quite early in Islamic history.From the entry schism
- I tried it again; same story, no error message, nothing happened.From the entry story
- Sarah thinks that nothing is impossible because things can always somehow happen.From the entry impossible
- Who'd have thought that such a thing would happen to little old moi!From the entry moi
- I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun.From the entry load
- I wanted to record every detail of what happened, for the benefit of future generations.From the entry record
- Imagine what might happen if it were possible to harness solar energy fully.From the entry harness
- He took no notice of the changes, and went on as though nothing had happened.From the entry notice
- A genocide will always be followed by the denial that it ever happened.From the entry genocide
- So the CEO of ScamCo is going to prison? Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.From the entry couldn't happen to a nicer
- The media published a blow-by-blow of the trial as it happened.From the entry blow-by-blow
- Good heavens! Whichever button did you press to make that happen?!From the entry whichever
- Briefly, I am not happy about what happened, but no one will be losing their job.From the entry briefly
- Maybe you should ask your quote unquote friend what happened to the money.From the entry quote unquote
- (from intense concern) Whew! Thank goodness youʼre safe! I thought something terrible had happened to you!From the entry whew
- If nothing happens when you ask nicely, make a stink until something gets done.From the entry make a stink
Meaning of happen
- verb To occur or take place.
- verb To happen to; to befall.
- verb To do or occur by chance or unexpectedly.
Questions about happen in a sentence
- How do you use happen in a sentence?
- Happen is used as a verb and adverb. For example: “Let me tell you how it happened.”
- What is a short sentence with happen?
- “Do you happen to have an umbrella?”
- What does happen mean?
- Happen means to occur or take place.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: happen (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use happen in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/happen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.