geschieht

Geschieht is the third-person singular present indicative form of the German verb geschehen, meaning to happen or occur. It is commonly used in impersonal constructions with the pronoun es, as in es geschieht or was geschieht, to describe events or developments. The verb is often found in formal, journalistic, or literary contexts, where it conveys events as they unfold rather than describing a direct action by a subject.

In usage, geschehen is slower-paced and more formal than the synonym passiern. While passiern is widely used in everyday speech to mean “to happen” or “to occur,” geschehen tends to emphasize the occurrence of events, often with a sense of consequence or inevitability. For example: Was geschieht hier? What is happening here? Es geschieht oft, dass sich Pläne ändern. It is also common in phrases describing events that have already taken place, such as es ist geschehen (it has happened).

The verb forms include geschah in the simple past and ist geschehen in the present perfect. Future constructions use wird geschehen (it will happen). The form ich geschehen or du geschiehst is not used in ordinary modern speech; the present tense is typically limited to es geschieht and related third-person forms.

Etymologically, geschehen derives from Germanic roots with the Ge- prefix used in perfective formations. Related forms appear in other West Germanic languages, such as Dutch gebeuren, which carries the same core meaning of “to happen” or “to occur.”