widerfahren

Widerfahren is a German verb meaning to befall or to happen to someone; to occur to a person. It is used to describe events that affect someone, often with a sense of misfortune, but it can also be neutral or even positive.

Grammar and usage

Widerfahren is typically used with the thing that happens as the subject and the person affected in the dative case. For example: "Ein Unglück widerfährt dem Mann." or "Dem Mann widerfährt ein Unglück." The construction is common in formal or literary style. The pronoun or noun in the dative indicates who experiences the event. The verb is generally not used with a direct object in ordinary speech; instead, the affected person is expressed in the dative.

Tense and participle

The perfect tense is formed with the auxiliary ist: "Es ist ihm widerfahren" (literally, "it has happened to him"). The past participle is "widerfahren" (unmarked for a separate prefix in compound tenses). The present tense forms exist (ich widerfahre, du widerfährst, er widerfährt, wir widerfahren, ihr widerfahrt, sie widerfahren) but are rarely used in everyday speech, which tends to favor more common expressions like "etwas passiert mir" or "etwas geschieht mir."

Etymology

Widerfahren comes from Middle High German widerfahren, with wider- resembling a prefix meaning “against” or “toward” and erfahren meaning “to experience.” The sense evolved to denote something that befalls or happens to someone.

See also

Befallen, sich ereignen, passieren.