event

Less common meanings

5. 5
   medical episodenouncountable

   An episode of a serious medical condition, such as a heart attack or a stroke.

   The patient was hospitalized following a serious cardiovascular event.

   Researchers recorded every acute cardiac event during the trial.

   Similarepisode, attack

   Note

   Clinical writing uses the word as a neutral unit for counting episodes of illness. It nearly always travels with a qualifying adjective that names the kind, such as a cardiovascular event, or an adverse event in a drug trial, which may be mild. In trial reports, events are recorded and counted. Outside a medical context, the bare word would not suggest illness at all.

6. 6
   computingnouncountable

   Something that happens, such as a click, a keypress or a page finishing loading, that software detects and responds to, often by running a handler.

   The browser fires an event whenever the user scrolls the page.

   Developers attach handlers to events like clicks and key presses.

   Note

   Programming turns the word into a signal: a click, a keypress or a scroll that the system notices. Software watches for events through an event listener and responds by calling an event handler. Events are conventionally said to fire. Those two compounds, event listener and event handler, are where most programmers first meet the word. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • Software can listen for events and respond by calling an event handler. developer.mozilla.org
7. 7
   probabilitynouncountable

   A set of some of the possible outcomes of an experiment; a subset of the sample space.

   The event of drawing a red card has a probability of one half.

   Two events are independent when one does not affect the other.

   Note

   In probability the word names a set, not a single result. For one roll of a die, X=1 is an event, but so are X>5 and "X is 1, 3 or 5," each a group of outcomes gathered under one description. The line to keep clear is this: an outcome is one member of the sample space, and an event is a subset of it. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • A probability event is a set of outcomes, which may contain just one outcome. maths.dur.ac.uk
   • With X denoting the die's score, the examples describe the events {1}, {6} and {1,3,5}; the first two contain one outcome each. maths.dur.ac.uk
   • An outcome is an element of the sample space. maths.dur.ac.uk
   • In general, an event must be a measurable subset belonging to the probability model's specified sigma-algebra. Arbitrary subsets need not be events. idsc.ethz.ch
8. 8
   remarkable personnoundatedfigurativelycountable

   A remarkable or extraordinary 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)

   Similarsensation

   Note

   A dated, uncommon flourish that treats a person as a happening worth talking about. It works best as a spoken exclamation of delight. In Miss Marple: The Moving Finger (1985), Mr. Pye cries, "Miss Burton, you are an event!" It usually takes an article, as in an event or quite an event. Sensation does the same job in a less old-fashioned way. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • The Miss Marple television adaptation The Moving Finger dates from 1985. agathachristie.com
   • Mr. Pye says, "Miss Burton, you are an event!" en.wiktionary.org
9. 9
   nounobsolete

   An affair in hand; a piece of business or an enterprise.

   Leave we him to his events.

   c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”

   Note

   Shakespeare's Measure for Measure uses the word for business in hand: "Leave we him to his events," that is, to his affairs. Here the stress falls on what someone is engaged in, not on what befalls them, which is why the line sounds strange to a modern ear. The sense is obsolete, so it matters for reading older texts, not for writing. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • Measure for Measure is by William Shakespeare. en.wikisource.org
   • Measure for Measure contains the quoted words; Escalus speaks them. folger.edu
   • The quotation illustrates the obsolete sense meaning someone's affairs or business in hand. en.wiktionary.org
10. 10
    verbobsolete

    To occur or come to pass; to take place.

    Note

    A verb from the same Latin source as the noun, now obsolete. Robert Greene's Greene's Never Too Late (1590) speaks of a history "acted and evented" in his own country. It took no object and inflected regularly: events, evented, eventing. Readers of sixteenth-century prose may meet it, but writers today use happen or occur. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 7 facts

    • The verb meaning to occur shares the noun's Latin origin. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
    • Robert Greene wrote Greene's Never Too Late, first published in 1590. celm.folger.edu
    • The work contains the words 'acted and evented', describing a history set in England. en.wiktionary.org
    • In the occurrence sense, the verb is intransitive. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb has the regular forms events, evented and eventing. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb occurs in sixteenth-century prose. en.wiktionary.org
11. 11
    verbobsoleteintransitive

    To be given off or breathed out into the air; to evaporate.

    Note

    A different word that happens to share the spelling. It comes from French éventer, not from the Latin behind the everyday "occurrence" noun. It describes something escaping into the air: in William Barclay's Callirhoe (1615), a spring's hidden virtue "eventeth and vanisheth" when the water is carried away. It is obsolete and intransitive here, though the same verb once also took an object, meaning to air something out. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 7 facts

    • This verb has a different etymology, deriving from French éventer rather than the occurrence noun's Latin source. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb can mean to escape into the air or evaporate. en.wiktionary.org
    • William Barclay wrote Callirhoe. en.wikipedia.org
    • Callirhoe was first published in 1615. archive.org
    • Callirhoe says that the water's hidden virtue 'eventeth and vanisheth' when transported. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
    • It is intransitive in the evaporation sense, but also had a transitive sense meaning to expose to air or ventilate. en.wiktionary.org
12. 12
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To expose something to the air; to ventilate.

    Note

    The transitive side of the French borrowing traced at the "evaporate" verb. Here someone does the airing, and the thing aired is the object. It appears in The Mirror for Magistrates (1559) and in George Chapman's Hero and Leander (1598). The word is obsolete now, and a modern writer would say ventilate or air out. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 6 facts

    • The airing sense and the evaporating sense derive from the same French verb, éventer. en.wiktionary.org
    • The airing sense is transitive, with the thing aired as its object. en.wiktionary.org
    • The verb occurs in The Mirror for Magistrates. en.wiktionary.org
    • The Mirror for Magistrates was first published in 1559. en.wikipedia.org
    • The verb occurs in George Chapman's contribution to Hero and Leander. gutenberg.org
    • Hero and Leander, including Chapman's continuation, was first published in 1598. en.wikipedia.org
13. 13
    noun

    A point in spacetime, fixed by three spatial coordinates and one time coordinate.