Verb

(en verb)

To occur or take place.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)

, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.}}

To occur unexpectedly, by chance or with a low probability.

To encounter by chance.

* 1860 , , The Marble Faun , ch. 30:

Unexpectedly, in a nook close by the farmhouse, he happened upon a spot where the vintage had actually commenced.

Verb

(en verb)

(obsolete) To remove the cover from; to uncover (a head, building etc.).

To expose, uncover.

:

(chess) To create by moving a piece out of another piece's line of attack.

:

(archaic) To reveal (information); to divulge, make known.

:

*Shakespeare

*:Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover / The several caskets to this noble prince.

*Francis Bacon

*:Prosperity doth best discover' vice; but adversity doth best ' discover virtue.

(obsolete) To reconnoitre, explore (an area).

*, Bk.V, ch.ix:

*:they seyde the same, and were aggreed that Sir Clegis, Sir Claryon, and Sir Clement the noble, that they sholde dyscover the woodys, bothe the dalys and the downys.

To find or learn something for the first time.

:

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism.}}

(obsolete) To manifest without design; to show; to exhibit.

*C. J. Smith

*:The youth discovered a taste for sculpture.

*1806 , Alexander Hunter, Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ , p.125:

*:The English Cooks keep all their Spices in separate boxes, but the French Cooks make a spicey mixture that does not discover a predominancy of any one of the spices over the others.