Hap

/hæp/ · noun

Meaning

(uncountable) A person's lot (good or bad), luck, fortune, fate..

Definitions by Sense

1. (uncountable) A person's lot (good or bad), luck, fortune, fate.
2. (countable) A stroke of good or bad luck, an occurrence or happening, especially an unexpected, random, chance, or fortuitous event.
3. (intransitive, literary) To happen; to befall; to chance.
4. (transitive, literary) To happen to.
5. (slang, in the plural) Happenings; events; goings-on. [from 20th c.]
6. (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.
7. (dialect) To wrap, clothe.
8. Any of the cichlid fishes of the tribe Haplochromini.

Example Sentences

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

"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,....

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

Synonyms for hap

Antonyms for hap

Related Words

Word Forms

• haps
• happing
• happed

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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