Thank you to the WNW Reader who requested the history of the word happiness. Let’s explore!

Happiness, meaning “a state of being happy”, is a combination of the adjective happy and the suffix -ness.

Happy first came to the English language in the late 14th century and – here is where I was surprised – actually comes from the combination of the noun hap and the suffix -y. Back in the 1200s, hap meant “chance, fate, fortune, luck”. The suffix -y means “full of or characterized by”. I guess it makes sense then that happy first meant “lucky or favored by fortune”, A.K.A. “full of or characterized by hap”.

The English hap comes from Old Norse’s happ, meaning “chance, good luck”,
which comes from the Proto-Germanic hap-,
which comes from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) kob-, meaning “to fit, suit, or succeed”.

After learning this much, I got curious and found some bonus info for my fellow Nerds:

There is also a verb version of hap: it’s the exact same word, but when used as a verb, means “to come to pass, be the case” or literally “occur by hap, have the (good or bad) fortune to (do, be, etc.)”. This word over time evolved into happenen in the late 14th century, and then eventually into happen (then eventually back into happenin’ if you’re cool, #DadJoke).

Well, hell, what else can we combine with the “chance, luck” of hap? How about a word that means “risk, danger, or peril”! That’s right, I’m talking about dangerous luck: accidents, randomness, chaos! I give you: haphazard.

Yep, that’s right: happy, happen, and haphazard are all linguistically related to each other.

Okay, final piece of trivia to share. The word happy in most European languages first meant “lucky”, including languages with different roots, like Greek! One exception is Welsh, where the word for happy first meant “wise”.

I’ll stop there!

Happy Word Nerd Wednesday, Nerds. At this time, I have decided to take a break from weekly etymology exploration. Stay tuned here or on Instagram for what I will be creating instead! Thanks for all your support and I hope you stick around for the great things to come.

References

Online Etymology Dictionary: Happiness
https://www.etymonline.com/word/happiness

Online Etymology Dictionary: Happy
https://www.etymonline.com/word/happy

Online Etymology Dictionary: Hap
https://www.etymonline.com/word/hap

Online Etymology Dictionary: Happen
https://www.etymonline.com/word/happen

Online Etymology Dictionary: Haphazard
https://www.etymonline.com/word/haphazard