happy

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   well expressed and to the point

   a happy turn of phrase

2. 2
   adj

   enjoying or showing or marked by joy or pleasure

   a happy smile

3. 3
   adj

   Having a feeling arising from a consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment; enjoying good of any kind, such as comfort, peace, or tranquillity; blissful, contented, joyous.

   Music makes me feel happy.

4. 4
   adj

   Experiencing the effect of favourable fortune; favored by fortune or luck; fortunate, lucky.

   […] I think I may presume that what I have hitherto Diſcourſed will induce you to think, that Chymists have been much more happy in finding Experiments than the Cauſes of them; or in aſſigning the Principles by which they may beſt be explain’d.

5. 5
   adj

   Content, willing, satisfied (with or to do something); having no objection (to something).

   Are you happy to pay me back by the end of the week?

6. 6
   adj

   Bringing or being an instance of favourable fortune; apt, felicitous, fortunate, propitious.

   happy coincidence

7. 7
   adj

   Favoring or inclined to use.

   slaphappy, trigger-happy

8. 8
   adj

   Dexterous, ready, skilful.

   For inſtance, one lady can give an anſwer better than aſk a queſtion: one gentleman is happy at a reply; another excels in a rejoinder: one can revive a languiſhing converſation by a ſudden ſurpriſing ſentence; another is more dextrous in ſeconding; a third can fill the gap with laughing, or commending what has been ſaid.

Etymology

From Middle English happy (“fortunate, happy”), perhaps an alteration of Middle English happyn, happen (“fortunate, happy”), possibly related to or from Old Norse heppinn (“fortunate, happy”); and potentially assimilated to be equivalent to hap (“chance, luck, fortune”) + -y. Compare also Icelandic heppinn (“lucky”), Faroese heppin (“fortunate, lucky, happy”), Norwegian Nynorsk heppen (“lucky”), Scots happin (“fortunate, blessed”). See further at hap.