event

plural events

1. An occurrence; something that happens.

   In the event of strong wind…

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   the events of his early years

   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

   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

   Synonyms: circumstance

2. A prearranged social activity (function, etc.)

   Where will the event be held?

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   I went to an event in San Francisco last week.

3. One of several contests that combine to make up a competition.
4. An end result; an outcome (now chiefly in phrases).

   In the event, he turned out to have what I needed anyway.

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   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

   dark doubts between the promise and 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, […]; [a]nd sold by M[ary] Cooper, […], →OCLC

5. datedfigurativelyuncommonA 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)

   Synonyms: sensation

6. natural sciencesA point in spacetime having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate.
7. computingA 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. mathematicsA 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. obsoleteAn 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. medicineAn episode of severe health conditions.

present singular third person events · participle present eventing · participle past evented · past evented

1. obsoleteTo 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 […]

present singular third person events · participle present eventing · participle past evented · past evented

1. intransitiveobsoleteTo 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.

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   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. obsoletetransitiveTo expose to the air, ventilate.

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   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 […]