happening

happen (up)on (someone or something)

To find or encounter someone or something randomly or without planning or intent. I happened on a quaint new craft store the other day. I happened upon your brother yesterday in the grocery store.
See also: happen

happen across (someone or something)

To find, discover, or encounter someone or something casually or by chance. I happened across a fantastic little café the other day. Let me know if you happen across my keys. I haven't been able to find them. It was the third time he had happened across her that week, yet he still didn't know her name.
See also: across, happen

happening

1. noun Something that happens; an occurrence or event. Oh, you missed quite a few noteworthy happenings while you were out town.
2. adjective, slang Cool or trendy. We need to go there for my birthday—it's the most happening place in the city right now.

What's happening?

What's going on? How are you doing? What's new with you? "Happening" is often colloquially shortened to "happenin'" or "happ'nin'." A: "Hey, Jake, what's happ'nin'?" B: "Not much, Mike. How you been?" What's happening, everyone? You all have a good weekend?
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

What's happening?

 and What's happ?
Sl. Hello, what's new? Hey, dude! What's happening? What's happ? How's it goin'?
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

happening

1. mod. fashionable; trendy; positive. (Collegiate.) Wow, that’s happening!
2. n. an event. The concert was a real happening.

What’s happ(ening)?

interrog. Hello, what’s new? Hey, dude! What’s happening?
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • happen (up)on (someone or something)
  • happen on
  • happen by
  • happen along
  • a whole nother story
  • nother
  • be taken by surprise
  • arrive at the scene (of something)
  • straightaway
  • save someone's face
References in periodicals archive
While watching TV, listening Radio and reading a newspaper we feel as present there where from media shows and tells what is happening to us.
Media: A rear view-mirror
The new Happening Now feature is being compared to Twitter's other feature that's called Moments.
Twitter Happening Now Groups Tweets About Specific Events
Newly released figures from the Department of Stressful Happenings (DoSH) reveal a worrying increase in the number of undesirable things that have been allowed to happen, which rose by 140 per cent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2012.
Letting things happen..
In the TDK's winter 1965 special issue, the urge to define and theorize the Happening seems largely a response to the fear of co-optation or expropriation: a fate linked, in the words of Ken Dewey--himself a "happener," in early-'60s New York underground lingo--to the "shallow response" of the mass media.
Turn of Events
was happening. This started to happen in my interview meeting too.
I Couldn't Tell What Happened
She will do anything to stop this from happening, including pretending to be a boy, trying to fool fate.
Johnston, Julie. A very fine line
Is there anything that/can do to help keep something like this from happening?
In the aftermath of violence: advice for teachers (grades 2-12) from Adele M. Brodkin, Ph.D
"If they're happening, they're so underground that no one's heard about them yet."
"They're peddling death": profiting from unsafe sex--an Advocate investigation
Your written communication with the airline will help the airline to determine what caused your problem, and may help the airline to prevent the same problems from happening to others.
How to Complain About Your Airline Service
An example of this kind of piping of information directly down to the ground can be shown by what happened right after Katrina as we were trying to get our hands on what was happening in New Orleans with the flood.
Providing real-time information to the warfighter
All eyes will be watching Wolfsburg to see just what happens in mid-April when Piech and other members of the board decide Pischetsrieder's fate, but the real excitement may be happening behind the curtain.
The return of Bernhard?
I've never heard of anything like this happening before and I've lived here for 18 years.
Village in shock
Really be in your body, looking out of your own eyes, as if this experience or interaction is happening again right now, all around you.
From stuck to liberated: accepting and letting goooo
What is happening is that the message that is sent to the world is that the influence of Castro and Chavez over Latin American countries is a negative one.
The statesman
While we may not have 20 per cent unemployment as during the Great Depression, what is happening now is a great shame on those regulatory agencies that were supposed to make sure the public was protected from corporate abuses.
Short on gasoline, long on greed