English
event
Etymology 1

From Middle French event, from Latin ēventus, from ēveniō ("to happen, to fall out, to come out"), from ē ("out of, from"), short form of ex + veniō ("come"); related to venture, advent, convent, invent, convene, evene, etc.

Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ɪˈvɛnt/
  • (weak vowel) IPA: /əˈvɛnt/
Noun

event (plural events)

  1. An occurrence; something that happens.
    • 1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC ↗:
      the events of his early years
  2. A prearranged social activity (function, etc.)
    I went to an event in San Francisco last week.
    Where will the event be held?
  3. One of several contests that combine to make up a competition.
  4. An end result; an outcome (now chiefly in phrases).
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC ↗, partition 2, section 3, member 3:
      hard beginnings have many times prosperous events […].
    • 1707, Semele, by Eccles and Congrieve; scene 8
      Of my ill boding Dream / Behold the dire Event.
    • 1743, [Edward Young], “Night the Fourth. The Christian Triumph.”, in The Complaint: Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], →OCLC ↗:
      dark doubts between the promise and event
    In the event, he turned out to have what I needed anyway.
  5. (figurative, uncommon, dated) A remarkable person.
    Synonyms: sensation
  6. (physics) A point in spacetime having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate.
  7. (computing) A possible action that the user can perform that is monitored by an application or the operating system (event listener). When an event occurs an event handler is called which performs a specific task.
  8. (probability theory) A set of some of the possible outcomes; a subset of the sample space.
    If X is a random variable representing the toss of a six-sided die, then its sample space could be denoted as {1,2,3,4,5,6}. Examples of events could be: X = 1, X = 2, X \ge 5, X \not = 4, and X \isin \{1,3,5\}.
  9. (obsolete) An affair in hand; business; enterprise.
    • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:
      Leave we him to his events.
  10. (medicine) An episode of severe health conditions.
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

event (events, present participle eventing; simple past and past participle evented)

  1. (obsolete) To occur, take place.
    • 1590, Robert Greene, Greene’s Never Too Late, in The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert Greene, Volume 8, Huff Library, 1881, p. 33,
      […] I will first rehearse you an English Historie acted and evented in my Countrey of England […]
Etymology 2

From French éventer.

Verb

event (events, present participle eventing; simple past and past participle evented)

  1. (obsolete, intransitive) To be emitted or breathed out; to evaporate.
    • c. 1597, Ben Jonson, The Case is Altered, Act V, Scene 8, in C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson (editors), Ben Jonson, Volume 3, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927, p. 178,
      ô that thou sawst my heart, or didst behold
      The place from whence that scalding sigh evented.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To expose to the air, ventilate.
    • 1559, attributed to William Baldwin, “How the Lorde Clyfford for his straunge and abhominable cruelty came to as straunge and sodayne a death” in The Mirror for Magistrates, Part III, edited by Joseph Haslewood, London: Lackington, Allen & Co., 1815, Volume 2, p. 198,
      For as I would my gorget have undon
      To event the heat that had mee nigh undone,
      An headles arrow strake mee through the throte,
      Where through my soule forsooke his fylthy cote.
    • 1598, George Chapman, The Third Sestiad, Hero and Leander (completion of the poem begun by Christopher Marlowe),
      […] as Phœbus throws
      His beams abroad, though he in clouds be clos’d,
      Still glancing by them till he find oppos’d
      A loose and rorid vapour that is fit
      T’ event his searching beams, and useth it
      To form a tender twenty-colour’d eye,
      Cast in a circle round about the sky […]


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