as it happens

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Adverb

as it happens (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) By coincidence, incidentally.

   I have my guitar with me in the car, as it happens. I'll go and get it.

   "You won't know Paris, I suppose." - "As it happens, I went to university there!"

   • 2014 September 16, Ian Jack, “Is this the end of Britishness”, in The Guardian:

     In the second volume of his autobiography, he writes of a journey up the Padma by paddle steamer (built, as it happens, on the river outside my window), where the dry season had exposed many sandbanks...

Usage notes

• Often used to introduce a statement which contradicts a previous statement.

Alternative forms

• as it happened
• as it so happens
• it so happens
• it just so happens

Translations

by coincidence

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 正好 (zh) (zhènghǎo), 正巧 (zh) (zhèngqiǎo)

• Czech: náhodou (cs)
• Finnish: sattumalta (fi)
• French: il se trouve (fr)
• Italian: guarda caso
• Polish: tak się składa
• Portuguese: por acaso, por um acaso
• Russian: как ра́з (ru) (kak ráz), ока́зывается (okázyvajetsja), ме́жду про́чим (ru) (méždu próčim), де́ло в то́м, что (délo v tóm, što)
• Spanish: sin ir más lejos