Dictionaries › French

happer

Pronunciation: /a.pe/

“happer” is a French word. Its 4 meanings in English:

verb

  1. to snatch by the mouth, to snap up (typically of animals)
  2. to grab, to seize
  3. to strike forcefully
  4. to catch off guard; take by surprise

In French

  1. Saisir avidement avec la gueule ce qu’on lui jette, en parlant du chien et des animaux en général.
  2. Attraper, saisir, surprendre à l’improviste.
  3. Passionner, en général à propos d'une œuvre de fiction.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French happer, haper, from Old French happer, haper (“to seize, snap up”), of obscure origin. Possibly onomatopoeic. Alternatively, of Germanic origin, either from Proto-West Germanic *happā (“hook, clasp”), or related to Middle Dutch happen (“to snap, bite”) (whence modern Dutch happen), Middle Dutch haperen (“to stammer, quarrel”) (whence modern Dutch haperen), German Low…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “happer” there

More French words

About this dictionary

The French dictionary on Glottosphere has 298,912 entries with a page. Browse the French dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Definitions in French are from the French Wiktionary, under the same licence.