happy Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective enjoying or showing or marked by joy or pleasure
    • a happy smile
    • spent many happy days on the beach
    • a happy marriage
  2. adjective satellite marked by good fortune
    felicitous.
    • a felicitous life
    • a happy outcome
  3. adjective satellite eagerly disposed to act or to be of service
    glad.
    • glad to help
  4. adjective satellite well expressed and to the point
    well-chosen.
    • a happy turn of phrase
    • a few well-chosen words

WordNet

Hap"py adjective
Etymology
From Hap chance.
Wordforms
comparative Happier ; superlative Happiest
Definitions
  1. Favored by hap, luck, or fortune; lucky; fortunate; successful; prosperous; satisfying desire; as, a happy expedient; a happy effort; a happy venture; a happy omen.
    Chymists have been more happy in finding experiments than the causes of them. Boyle.
  2. Experiencing the effect of favorable fortune; having the feeling arising from the consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment; enjoying good of any kind, as peace, tranquillity, comfort; contented; joyous; as, happy hours, happy thoughts.
    Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord. Ps. cxliv. 15.
    The learned is happy Nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more. Pope.
  3. Dexterous; ready; apt; felicitous.
    One gentleman is happy at a reply, another excels in a in a rejoinder. Swift.
    W. Black.

Webster 1913