event

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈvɛnt/, /iˈvɛnt/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /əˈvɛnt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnt

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

   • 2017, Anthony J. McMichael, Alistair Woodward, Cameron Muir, Climate Change and the Health of Nations, →ISBN, page 67:

     Experience in Australia indicates that after a devastating weather event, up to one-fifth of people suffer the debilitating effects of extreme stress, emotional injury, and despair.

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.

   Synonym: sensation

   • 1985, Miss Marple: The Moving Finger, spoken by Mr. Pye (Richard Pearson):

     Miss Burton, you are an event! Sleepy, old Lymston's going to love you! Bye-bye. Bye.

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 ${\displaystyle X}$ 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: ${\displaystyle X=1}$, ${\displaystyle X=2}$, ${\displaystyle X\geq 5,X\not =4,}$ and ${\displaystyle X\in \{1,3,5\}}$.

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.

Verb

event (third-person singular simple present 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 […]

Verb

event (third-person singular simple present 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.

   • 1615, William Barclay, Callirhoe; commonly called The Well of Spa or The Nymph of Aberdene‎, Aberdeen, published 1799, page 12:

     This is the reason why this water hath no such force when it is carried, as it hath at the spring it self: because the vertue of it consisteth in a spiritual and occulte qualitie, which eventeth and vanisheth by the carriage.

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 […]

Declension

Related terms

• begivenhed

Declension

Declension

Related terms

• evenemang
• eventuell