The answer is EVENT, five letters. Read as a noun, a happening is simply something that occurs, and EVENT is the standard fill. The trap is AFOOT, which also has five letters and answers the adjective reading, meaning going on, so get a letter from any of the first four squares before inking EVENT.
Noun or adjective, same five squares
Happening does two jobs in English. As a noun it means an occurrence, and as an adjective it means taking place right now. Both readings have five letter answers, EVENT for the noun and AFOOT for the adjective, and nothing in a one word clue says which one the setter intended.
The two words look different, but they end in the same letter, so the last square is useless for telling them apart. Any of the first four will do it, since E, V, E and N sit where AFOOT has A, F, O and O. If the grid gives you room, the adjective has longer forms too: GOINGON at seven, UNDERWAY at eight and TAKINGPLACE at eleven, all run together without spaces. The noun side stretches to EPISODE, INCIDENT and OCCURRENCE, and the length alone usually tells you which side of the grammar you are on. OCCASION and INCIDENT both take eight squares and both answer the noun reading, but they lean in opposite directions, one toward a planned gathering and the other toward something that went wrong, so let a crossing decide rather than your mood.
Event began as an outcome
Event entered English in the 1570s meaning the consequence of something, a sense that survives in the phrase in the event that. By the 1580s it meant simply that which happens. The Latin source is eventus, from evenire, to come out or result, built from ex, out, and venire, to come. Sports borrowed it in 1865 for a single contest. The outcome sense also lingers in eventual, which meant pertaining to events in the 1610s and had come to mean ultimately resulting by 1823.
Happening has an older and humbler start. It first meant chance or luck in the fifteenth century, because happen grew out of hap, an old word for fortune that also survives in perhaps. The sense of an occurrence followed in the 1550s, and the adjective meaning occurring was in use by the 1520s.
AFOOT started out on foot
Afoot is even more literal. Around 1200 it meant on foot, walking rather than riding. By the 1520s it had come to mean astir or on the move, and by 1601 it could mean in active operation. Shakespeare gave it its most famous line in Henry V, where the king ends the speech that begins “Once more unto the breach” with “The game’s afoot.” Arthur Conan Doyle later handed a version of it to Sherlock Holmes, who wakes Watson in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” with the news that the game is afoot. In a grid, AFOOT is the answer whenever the clue reads as if something is underway.
Occurrence words, shortest first
| Letters | Answer | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | HOT | The slang sense, a lively place |
| 5 | EVENT | The default noun |
| 5 | AFOOT | The adjective, going on |
| 7 | EPISODE | One incident in a longer story |
| 7 | GOINGON | Adjective phrase, run together |
| 7 | INTRAIN | The phrase in train, in progress |
| 8 | INCIDENT | A noun, often something unwelcome |
| 8 | UNDERWAY | Adjective, in progress |
| 8 | OCCASION | A noun for a planned gathering |
| 10 | OCCURRENCE | The formal noun |
| 11 | TAKINGPLACE | The phrase in full |
The art sense and the slang sense
Two newer meanings can also sit behind the clue. In the spring of 1959, at an art picnic on George Segal’s farm, the artist Allan Kaprow coined happening for a kind of performance built around a spontaneous event, often with the audience taking part, and his 18 Happenings in 6 Parts from that year is commonly cited as the first. That artistic sense of the word dates from 1959. Slang also turned the word into an adjective for a busy, lively or fashionable place. HOT carries the same meaning and has appeared as a three letter answer to the clue, so a very short slot is a strong hint that the setter means trendy rather than taking place.
