heppen

English

Etymology

Compare Old English ġehæp fit, Icelandic heppinn lucky, English happy.

Adjective

heppen (comparative heppener or more heppen, superlative heppenest or most heppen)

1. (obsolete, Yorkshire, southwest Lincolnshire) neat; fit; comfortable [17th–19th c.]
   • 1824, William Carr, “Dialogue I”, in Horæ Momenta Cravenæ, or The Craven Dialect,  […], London: Hurst, Robinson and Co. Cheapside, page 24:

     Brid. Thou says vara reight, poor as weer, we sud be far warse wor he to come; for he wad, naa doubt, mack a sad derse amang us; Joan an me ha’ not michto crack on, bud we can mack shift to live ina gradely, menceful, heppen way, an I wad be waa to soap it for awt’ French freedom they make sike frap about.

   • 1857, Henry Best, “For Hyringe of Servantes”, in Charles Best Robinson, editor, Rural Economy in Yorkshire, in 1641,  […], Durham: George Andrews, page 133:

     Wee give usually to a spaught for holdinge of the oxe plough fower nobles or perhapps 30s. per annum, if hee bee such an one as have beene trained and beene brought up att the plough, and bee a wigger and heppen youth for loadinge of a waine, and goinge with a draught.

   • 1889, Geo. Lancaster, “Riding the Stang”, in John Nicholson, editor, The Folk Speech of East Yorkshire, London: Simpkin, Marshall & Company, page 38:

     ’Cawse Bessy, his wife, thof i’ nowt bud print goons,
     Was heppenest woman you'd finnd i’ ten toons;

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “heppen”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Further reading

• Holderness and the Holdernessians. A Few Notes on the History, Topography, Dialect, Manners and Customs of the District, Trübner & Company, 1878, pages 50-51
• Robert E. G. Cole (1886) A Glossary of Words Used in South-west Lincolnshire: (Wapentake of Graffoe), Trübner & Co., page 64
• Joseph Wright (1898) The English Dialect Dictionary, page 143
• Diarmaid Ó Muirithe (2011) Words We Don't Use (Much Anymore): The Meaning of Words And Where They Come From, Gill & Macmillan, page 175