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Happen vs Surface - What's the difference?

happen | surface |

As a noun happen

is morsel.

As a verb surface is

.

happen

English

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.

    Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See

    Derived terms

    * as it happens * happen along * happener * happeningly * it so happens

    Adverb

    (-)
  • (obsolete or dialect) maybe, perhaps.
  • English catenative verbs 1000 English basic words ----

    surface

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,
  • The outside hull of a tangible object.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}
  • (lb) Outward or external appearance.
  • :
  • *(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)
  • *:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.
  • (lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.
  • :(Stocqueler)
  • Synonyms

    * overside * superfice (archaic)

    Derived terms

    * surface mail * surficial

    Verb

  • To provide something with a surface.
  • To apply a surface to something.
  • To rise to the surface.
  • To come out of hiding.
  • For information or facts to become known.
  • To work a mine near the surface.
  • To appear or be found.