▪ I. event, n.
(ɪˈvɛnt)
Also 6 Sc. evend.
[a. OF. event, ad. L. ēvent-us occurrence, issue, f. ēvenīre to come out, happen, result, f. ē- out + venīre to come.]
1. a. The (actual or contemplated) fact of anything happening; the occurrence of. Now chiefly in phrase in the event of: in the case (something specified) should occur; also (U.S.) without of.
| 1602 W. Fulbecke 1st Pt. Parall. Introd. 1, I could not but expect the euent of so good a thing. Mod. In the event of the earl's death, the title will lapse. 1835 Dickens Let. 29 Oct. (1965) I. 84, I have instructed the Bearer to wait for an answer, in the event of your being at home. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 404 The juridical and theological dilemma in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other. 1966 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. 1964 XLII. 8 Roll bar, a metal tubular structure over the cockpit which protects the driver in the event the car overturns. |
† b. in point of event: in point of fact, as things have actually happened. Obs.
| 1676 Allen Addr. Nonconf. 29 And..we find in point of event, that the ordinary way..hath been, etc. |
2. a. Anything that happens, or is contemplated as happening; an incident, occurrence. the course of events: see course.
| 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. v. iii. 204 To Order well the State, That like Euents, may ne'er it Ruinate. 1632 Lithgow Trav. iv. 140 The dangerous euents in darke and tempestuous nights, which happen there [in this sea]. 1650 Cromwell Lett. 12 Sept. (Carlyle), [We do not think] of the hand of the great God in this mighty and strange appearance of His; but can slightly call it an ‘event’! 1736 Butler Anal. Introd. Wks. 1874 I. 2 This observation forms..a presumption..that such event has or will come to pass. 1803 Campbell Lochiel's Warning, Coming events cast their shadows before. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth xix, Her affection, awakened by the events of the morning. 1876 J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. I. i. ii. 86 An utter change in the political events which came after..would have been the result. |
b. In various spec. uses (see quots.).
| 1919 A. N. Whitehead Enquiry Princ. Nat. Knowledge ii. vi. 72 The ‘constants of externality’ are those characteristics of a perpetual experience which it possesses..when we apprehend it. A fact which possesses these characteristics, namely these constants of externality, is what we call an ‘event’. 1920 A. S. Eddington Space Time & Gravit. iii. 45 A point in this space-time, that is to say a given instant at a given place, is called an ‘event’. An event in its customary meaning would be the physical happening which occurs at and identifies a particular place and time. However, we shall use the word in both senses. 1924 R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind v. §10. 329 Here a process of uniting two event-configurations into one is indicated. The transference from a one-word to a many-word sentence is carried out. 1959 Times 13 Mar. 10/6 The site of a suspected ‘event’ (the technical term for a nuclear explosion). 1959 Operations Research VII. 649 An ‘event’, depicted by circled numbers in Fig. 1, is defined as a distinguishable, unambiguous point in time that coincides with the beginning and/or end of a specific task or activity in the R[esearch] and D[evelopment] process. 1963 J. Lyons Structural Semantics vi. 118 If the antecedent is an ‘event’-‘state’ verb, then the aorist of the antecedent expresses the ‘event’ which issues in the ‘state’ expressed by the imperfective of the consequent. It follows..that the consequent will be either an ‘event’-‘state’ verb or merely a ‘state’ verb. 1964 K. G. Lockyer Introd. Critical Path Analysis ii. 9 An arrow diagram is made up of only two basic elements—(i) An event, which must be ‘of a definite recognizable nature and..must be a point in time’... (ii) An activity, which is the ‘work’ or ‘job’ which leads up to an event. Ibid. x. 100 This ‘event⁓orientation’ is quite common in PERT systems. 1968 Gloss. Terms Project Network Anal. (B.S.I.) 6 Event, a state in the progress of a project after the completion of all preceding activities but before the start of any succeeding activity. 1968 P. A. P. Moran Introd. Probability Theory iv. 186 The σ-field and its corresponding measure is known as a ‘probability space’, and the sets, {ob}A{cb}, are ‘events’. |
c. pl. (without article) for ‘the course of events’; also occas. in sing. the event.
| 1719 De Foe Crusoe (1840) I. xiv. 238, I resolved to put myself upon the watch to see them..and leave the rest to the event. 1842 Miall Nonconf. II. 1 Events have proved us right. 1879 Dixon Windsor II. xii. 130 Nature and events had made him king. |
d. In mod. use chiefly restricted to occurrences of some importance; hence colloquial uses such as quite an event. (Cf. Fr. un véritable événement.)
| 1883 I. L. Bishop in Leisure H. 84/2 The first sight of a real mangrove swamp is an event. |
e. In the doctrine of chances: (a) Any one of the possible (mutually exclusive) occurrences some one of which will happen under stated conditions, and the relative probability of which may be computed. compound event: one that consists in the combined occurrence of two or more simple events. (b) Occasionally, a trial or hazard, which will result in some one of several different ways (‘events’ in the preceding sense).
| 1838 De Morgan Ess. Probab. 96 One of the events, A, B, C, &c. must happen at every trial, and each event brings with it a specified gain or loss. 1885 Crofton in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9) XIX. 771 Determination of the probabilities of Compound Events, when the probabilities of the simple events on which they depend are known. Ibid., Let there be an event which must turn out in one of two ways, W and B. |
f. In sporting language: Something on the issue of which money is staked; also, one of the items in a programme of sports.
| 1855 Thackeray Newcomes II. 66 The young fellows were making an ‘event’ out of Ethel's marriage and sporting their money freely on it. 1865 Trollope Belton Est. i. 4 Trusting to the next event at Newmarket to set him right. 1884 Cyclist 13 Feb. 247/2 The Amateur Athletic Association passed a rule prohibiting the holding of professional events at amateur athletic meetings. 1884 Sat. Rev. 12 July 50 Of the leading events Oxford, Cambridge, and Eton each won one. |
3. a. That which follows upon a course of proceedings; the outcome, issue; that which proceeds from the operation of a cause; a consequence, result. in (the) event: in (the) result.
| 1573 Sempill Ball. 187 Weill micht the counsals beir ane gude euend. 1570–6 Lambarde Peramb. Kent (1826) 247 Touching the originall, proceeding, and event of these wars I spare to speake much. 1611 Heywood Gold. Age i. i, Causes best friended haue the best euent. 1612 T. Taylor Comm. Titus ii. 4 Too much indulgence..is a cruell loue in the euent. 1645 Fuller Good Th. in Bad T. (1841) 24 His courtesy in intention proved a mischief in event. 1711 Steele Spect. No. 113 ¶3 A beautiful Creature in a Widow's Habit sat in Court, to hear the Event of a Cause concerning her Dower. 1767 Gooch Treat. Wounds I. 96 We have surprising accounts..of the recovery of persons, without the least prospect of a favourable event. 1820 Scott Ivanhoe xiii, He then took his aim..and the multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. 1848 Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 612 The event of his enterprise was doubtful. 1866 Motley Dutch Rep. ii. ii. 146 They openly, and in the event successfully, resisted the installation of the new prelate. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 53 There is no merit..in learning wisdom after the event. |
† b. Undesigned or incidental result. nonce-use.
| 1644 H. Parker Jus Pop. 25 The Pilot wafts himself by event [Aristotle's κατὰ συµβεβηκός, Phys. ii. 1], it being impossible that he should waft others, if hee were absent. |
† 4. What ‘becomes of’ or befalls (a person or thing); fate. Obs.
| 15.. More Edw. V Ep. Ded. 2 The miserable and wretched end and event of the other. 1591 Spenser Teares Muses 143 A ship in midst of tempest left..Full sad and dreadfull is that ships event. 1611 Bible Eccl. ix. 2. 1674 Owen Holy Spirit (1693) 129 They differ as unto the Event they may come unto. |
5. Idiomatic phrases, with mixed notion of 2 and 3. at (or † in) all events: whatever happens or happened; in any case, at any rate. † upon all events: for every emergency.
| 1672 Evelyn Mem. (1857) II. 80, I had put all things in readiness upon all events. 1685 Ibid. II. 250 In all events..the Church of England..is the most primitive, apostolical, and excellent. [1703 Ld. Holt in Raymond Rep. 909 He is bound to answer for the goods at all events but acts of God and the king's enemies.] 1761–2 Hume Hist. Eng. (1806) IV. li. 42 Civil war..must in all events, prove calamitous to the nation. 1818 Jas. Mill Brit. India II. iv. ii. 73 Dupleix sent repeated orders that it [the reinforcement] might be intercepted at all events. 1857 Buckle Civiliz. I. x. 603 Berkstead was a pedlar, or at all events a hawker of small wares. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 35 Not this at all events, which is the opposite of truth. |
6. Special Comb.: event horizon Astr., a notional surface from beyond which no matter or radiation can reach an external observer; spec. the Schwarzschild sphere of a black hole; event-particle, one of the abstract minimal elements into which, according to A. N. Whitehead, space-time can be analysed.
| 1969 Rivista del Nuovo Cimento I. Suppl. 273 Have we any right to suggest that the only type of collapse which can occur is one in which the space-time singularities lie hidden, deep inside the protective shielding of an absolute *event horizon? 1977 J. Narlikar Struct. of Universe iv. 123 A stage will come when B will have moved so far that the signal sent at t{p}1 will never reach B. When this stage comes B is said to have crossed beyond the event horizon of A. 1980 Sci. Amer. Apr. 101/2 The cosmological singularity is similar to the singularity in the event horizon of a black hole, the hypothetical surface in which matter and light rays are confined by gravity. |
| 1919 A. N. Whitehead Enquiry Princ. Nat. Knowledge iii. x. 121 An *event-particle is an instantaneous point viewed in the guise of an atomic event. The punct which an event-particle covers gives it an absolute position in the instantaneous space of any moment in which it lies. 1920 ― Concept of Nature viii. 172 Thus we finally reach the ideal of an event so restricted in its extension as to be without extension in space or extension in time. Such an event is a mere spatial point-flash of instantaneous duration. I call such an ideal event an ‘event-particle’. 1933 Mind XLII. 161 The instantaneous punctiform ‘event-particles’ of certain modern theories. |
▸ event-driven adj. Computing designating or relating to a program (esp. an operating system) whose execution is controlled by events such as input from a mouse, keyboard, or other external device; (more generally) motivated or determined by events; activated in response to events.
| 1967 Communications ACM Dec. 771 The *event-driven aspect, which simplified the design and cut down system overhead considerably, has not yet created any appreciable problems in applications programming. 1981 ABA Banking Jrnl. (Nexis) Mar. 60 It seems to me that banks' trust operations departments have been event-driven rather than goal-driven or -directed. To put that in less fancy language, the trust operations people have had to spend their time putting out fires. 1995 Computer Jan. 37/1 Event-driven rules differ from data-driven rules in that they are triggered explicitly by events rather than implicitly by data-item modifications. 2001 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 19 July 23/2 The novel is not so much plot-driven as event-driven. |
▪ II. † event, v.1 Obs.
[f. L. ēvent- ppl. stem of ēvenīre (see evene v.) to happen, take place.]
intr. To come to pass.
(An alleged transitive verb of this form in Richardson and later Dicts. is based on a passage misquoted from T. Wilson Rhet. 6 b; edd. 1553 and 1580 have invented.)
| 1590 Greene Never too late (1600) 13, An English History acted and euented in my Countrey of England. 1615 A. Niccholes Marriage & Wiv. xii, My Maid and I..Will tell old Stories long ago evented To pass the Time. 1650 Vind. Hammond's Addr. §32 To teach their Disciples apathy, or courage against whatsoever events. |
▪ III. † eˈvent, v.2 Obs.
[ad. Fr. éventer, OF. esventer, f. es-:—L. ex- + vent wind; cf. avent.]
a. trans. To expose to the air; hence, to cool. b. intr. for refl. To vent itself, find a vent.
| 1559 Baldwin in Mirr. Mag., Clifford viii, To euent the heat that had me nye vndoen. 1603 B. Jonson K. Jas'. Entertainm. Coronat., Lest the fervour of so pure a flame As this my city bears, might lose the name Without the apt eventing of her heat. 1609 ― Case is altered v. iii, The place from whence that scalding sigh evented. 1606 Chapman Hero & Leander iii, Till he [Phœbus] find oppos'd A loose and rorid vapour that is fit T' event his searching beams. |
▪ IV. event, v.3 Equestrianism.
(ɪˈvɛnt)
[Back-formation f. eventing.]
a. intr. To take part in horse trials (one-, two-, or three-day events). b. trans. To enter or ride (a horse) in horse trials.
| 1970 Batchelor & Longland Horse Trials Horses ix. 76 When she was only thirteen she was eventing with a horse called Foxtrot. 1975 Cork Examiner 30 May 21/1 (Advt.), Gelding, 6 years, hunted and evented. 1976 Horse & Hound 10 Dec. 71/1 (Advt.), T.B. chestnut gelding..sound and with potential to point-to-point or event. 1985 Times 13 Apr. 29/1 If you can be fit at 40, there's no reason why you shouldn't event and enjoy it. |