happen upon
To accidentally encounter a person or situationTo accidentally encounter a person or situation; to chance upon, happen on or stumble across.
» I happened upon it.
Amittai · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
1 sensesTo accidentally encounter a person or situation; to chance upon, happen on or stumble across.
натолкну́тьсяnatolknútʹsja
натрапля́тиnatrapljáty, натра́питиnatrápyty
- find unexpectedly
Examples
8 sentencesI happened upon it.
I happened upon her.
ruЯ случайно на неё наткнулся. — marafon
Last night I happened upon an old journal I kept as a teenager.
We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified.
While on a mountain trip, I was chewing on some hard, stale bread when I happened upon a huge snake.
Translations
3 languagesBy meaning 1
By meaning 1
Forms
happens upon, happening upon, happened upon, happened upon| Base form | happen upon · to happen upon |
|---|---|
| 3rd person singular | happens upon |
| Present participle | happening upon |
| Past simple | happened upon |
| Past participle | happened upon |
irregular
Synonyms
9 synonyms- find unexpectedly:fall uponstrikecome uponlight uponchance uponcome acrosschance onattain
Lessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.