event

noun, verb — 13 senses

event

noun

UK /ɪˈvɛnt/ · CA, US /ɪˈvɛnt/

Etymology From Middle French event, from Latin ēventus (“an event, occurrence”), 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.

10 senses
  1. 1An occurrence; something that happens.
  2. 2A prearranged social activity (function, etc.)
  3. 3One of several contests that combine to make up a competition.
  4. 4An end result; an outcome (now chiefly in phrases).
  5. 5A remarkable person.
  6. 6A point in spacetime having three spatial coordinates…
  7. 7A possible action that the user can perform that is…
  8. 8A set of some of the possible outcomes; a subset of the…
  9. 9An affair in hand; business; enterprise.
  10. 10An episode of severe health conditions.
1

An occurrence; something that happens.

  • In the event of strong wind…
  • the events of his early years1856 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:
1 more example
  • 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.2017, Anthony J. McMichael, Alistair Woodward, Cameron Muir, Climate Change and the Health of Nations, →ISBN, page 67:
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).

  • hard beginnings have many times prosperous events […].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:
  • Of my ill boding Dream / Behold the dire Event.1707, Semele, by Eccles and Congrieve; scene 8
2 more examples
  • dark doubts between the promise and event1743, [Edward Young], “Night the Fourth. The Christian Triumph.”, in The Complaint: Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […]; [a]nd sold by M[ary] Cooper, […], →OCLC:
  • In the event, he turned out to have what I needed anyway.
5

Dated, Figuratively, Uncommon A remarkable person.

  • Miss Burton, you are an event! Sleepy, old Lymston's going to love you! Bye-bye. Bye.1985, Miss Marple: The Moving Finger, spoken by Mr. Pye (Richard Pearson):
6

Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics A point in spacetime having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate.

7

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences 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

Mathematics, Probability theory, Sciences 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>5,X̸=4, and X isin 1,3,5.
9

Obsolete An affair in hand; business; enterprise.

  • Leave we him to his events.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]:
10

Medicine, Sciences An episode of severe health conditions.

Derived terms
93 termsadverse event, after-event, afterevent, anoxic event, at any event, Azolla event, bioevent, black swan event, Bond event, canon event, certain event, chain of events, Christ event, coevent, combined event, cosmic event horizon, cosmological event horizon, doujin event, energetic event, event-based, event-based programming, event CG, event data recorder, event derivative, event-driven, event-driven architecture, event-driven programming, eventer, eventful, event-goer, eventgoer, event handler, eventhood, evential, eventify, eventism, eventive, eventization, eventize, eventless, eventlike, event loop, event marketing, eventness, eventology, event recorder, event-related potential, eventscape, event sink, event time, event tree, eventual, extinction event, extinction level event, field event, impossible event, in any event, interevent, in the event of, in the event that, it is easy to be wise after the event, K-T extinction event, Lago Mare event, life event, liquidity event, main event, mass extinction event, megaevent, Messinian event, microevent, misevent, Miyake event, moral event horizon, multievent, never event, nonevent, non-event, oxygenation event, perievent, postevent, pseudoevent, road event, signalling event, special event, subevent, tail event, then and in that event, track event, transient luminous event, Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, Tunguska event, unevent, whiting event
Related terms
event horizon, in the event, wise after the event
Hyponyms
blessed event, credit event, Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, current events, doomsday event, episodic events, extinction event, impact event, media event, quick time event, risk event, sentinel event, social event, speciation event

event

verb

Etymology From Middle French event, from Latin ēventus (“an event, occurrence”), 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.

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 […]

event

verb

Etymology From French éventer.

1

Obsolete 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.
  • 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.1615, William Barclay, Callirhoe; commonly called The Well of Spa or The Nymph of Aberdene, Aberdeen, published 1799, page 12:
2

Obsolete 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 […]

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.