1509 H. Watson tr. S. Brant Shyppe of Fooles (de Worde) iii. sig. B.ii For truely there is manere in euery thynge, for the happy & eurous helde the hye waye.

1647 A. Cowley Sleep in Mistress iv Thou scorn'st th' Unhappy; and the Happy, Thee.

1769 W. Buchan Domest. Med. i. 80 That greatest of human blessings [sleep]..visits the happy, the chearful, and the gay.

1814 M. Edgeworth Patronage IV. xxxix. 184 The happy are not fastidious as to their accommodations, they never miss the painted ceiling, or the long arcade, and their slumbers require no bed of down.

1878 Pop. Sci. Monthly Dec. 195 Joy has less need of sympathy: the happy are apt to be self-sufficient.

1921 M. A. Crocker tr. G. Sierra Martínez Ana María xxii. 315 How generous the happy can be.

2001 J. A. Stuart tr. P. Scheerbart Gray Cloth 121 The reserved want the reserved, the happy want the happy, but the sad never want the sad.

1930 Altoona (Pa.) Mirror 25 May 1/6 At the meeting of the staff of Camp Shatter, the summer camp of the Blair-Bedford council, Boy Scouts of America, the slogan ‘Every Scout a Happy Camper’ was selected.]

1957 N.Y. Amsterdam News 22 June 34/ ‘I simply want to be a happy camper,’ says ‘Pocahontas’ whose real name is Miss Edna Riley.

1966 Herald-Press (St. Joseph, Mich.) 7 Mar. 1/5 (caption) No Happy Camper: Genuine pain is registered on the face of this unidentified soldier undergoing training at Fort Benning's Camp Happiness.

1981 Sunday Herald (Chicago) 27 Sept. (Northwest section: Elk Grove Village) Glossary of campus lingo... Happy Camper—Usually negative ‘My weekend? My cat died, mom made me paint the entire house and I caught my boyfriend with a guy. I was not a happy camper.’

1984 San Diego Union-Tribune (Nexis) 26 June c1 Although no longer distinguished by a world record, Lundquist said he is ‘a happy camper’.

2009 Express (Nexis) 12 May (Sports section) 58 He wasn't a happy camper, but sometimes the manager knows best.

1631 B. Jonson New Inne v. iii. sig. G3^v Here come the happy couple!

1753 Scots Mag. Aug. 422/2 The happy couple who got the Dunstable bacon in 1751.

1833 T. Hook Widow x, in Love & Pride I. 301 The happy couple left town..to pass the honey week—for they had not time to make a moon of it.

1907 St. Nicholas Oct. 1119/1 The ‘happy couple’..will hurry back to Red Feather's house to the reception.

1960 A. Duggan Family Favourites ix. 190 The happy couple exchanged their vows before the chief priest of Cybele as officiant.

2010 Wedding Ideas Nov. 148/1 This happy couple were no shrinking violets: think towering cakes, fairytale dresses and a popping pink and orange colour scheme.

1893 Brit. Printer Sept. 347/2 Drink A loving toast—‘Long life, and happy days, To our good Master, Father, and our Friend!’

1899 D. Belasco Naughty Anthony ii. i. in America's Lost Plays (1941) 299 I beg your pardon! Happy days! [stage direction: Drinks].

1935 G. Greene Basement Room & Other Stories 106 ‘Your health, my dear. You look younger than ever.’ ‘Happy days,’ Amy said.

1966 T. Walsh Face of Enemy (1968) 62 Another drink was handed to him... ‘Happy days, old boy.’

2001 K. Sampson Outlaws (2002) 280 Buying champagne for all kinds, having a laugh and joke with Liverpool's finest and a consignment of finest Turkish coming their way tomorrow. Happy days.

1912 M. I. Wilbert & M. G. Motter Digest Laws Poisons & Habit-forming Drugs U.S. Treasury Dept. Health Bull. No. 56. Index 266/1 Happy dust. See Cocaine.

1920 C. S. Montanye in O. Penzler Black Lizard Big Bk. of Pulps (2007) 630/1 ‘It's dope, isn't it?’.. The dark man's eyes began to sparkle. ‘Happy dust. Have some?’

1961 Baker St. Jrnl. Sept. 176 Holmes, clearly, had appointed himself his poor friend's keeper, and it was to keep him off the happy dust that he continually hauled him around from case to case.

2009 L. Bickerstaff Cocaine 6 Whether you call it..‘devil's dandruff’, ‘happy dust’, ‘nose candy’, or one of the other 165 street names for this illegal drug, you are talking about cocaine.

1602 tr. G. Corrozet Memorable Conceits 190 A good entrie or beginning is not all, without it haue a happie ending.]

1748 S. Richardson Let. 10 May (1964) 87 The greater Vulgar, as well as the less, had rather it [sc. Clarissa] had had what they call, an Happy Ending.

1795 R. Cumberland Henry I. iii. i. 202 Examples muster strongest for the story with a happy ending.

1884 H. James in Longman's Mag. Sept. 506 Another would say that it depends for a ‘happy ending’ on a distribution at the last of prizes, pensions, husbands, wives, babies, millions, appended paragraphs and cheerful remarks.

1934 E. Wharton Backward Glance vii. 147 The American public always wants..a tragedy with a happy ending.

1957 N. Frye Anat. Crit. 104 Most students of literature prefer to keep in the middle distance..run-of-the-mill Elizabethan sonnets and love lyrics,..nineteenth-century happy-ending novels.

1999 Weekend Austral. (Nexis) 14 Aug. (Review section) 8 ‘We are seeing more and more women accompanying their men in here,’ she says of her parlour, which provides ‘massage only’ but with a guaranteed ‘happy ending’.

2010 H. Jacobson Finkler Question iii. 71 Jane Austen waves her wand and conjures a happy ending at the eleventh hour.

2011 S. Brockmann Breaking Rules viii. 129 I thought it went massage, then happy ending?

1971 Beaver County (Pa.) Times 15 Sept. (Advertising Suppl.) A happy face lamp with the new smiley face.

1989 Austral. UNIX Syst. User Group Newslet. Dec. 127/1 There are a few overly friendly footnotes, e.g. the explanation of the ‘happy-face’, but these are bearable.

1992 Newsweek (Nexis) 6 Jan. 54 [He] wears a T shirt with a happy face that's been shot in the forehead.

2004 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 3 Oct. i. 3/4 A series of happy-face circles hangs on one wall. On them, children have illustrated some of the emotions they experience: horror, fear, sadness, indifference, anger, melancholy, exhaustion.

2011 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 28 Apr. b9 If you've downloaded an app for emojis, those little happy faces and icons, you can add it to your list of keyboards in this panel.

1737 King George II Let. 3 Aug. in Lett. Occas. Birth of Young Princess 6 Your carrying away her Royal Highness from Hampton Court..after sufficient Warnings for a Week before, to have made the necessary Preparations for this happy Event.

1758 Rev. Sixth Let. to People 53 He could not skip so lightly over his royal highness the duke of Cumberland's birth; to which happy event we are indebted for all the benefits we now enjoy.

1888 R. W. Felkin tr. I. E. Schnitzer Emin Pasha in Central Afr. i. 17 If twins are born, and especially if they are of the same sex, the whole village unites in celebrating the happy event.

1937 D. L. Sayers Busman's Honeymoon iv. 93 It seems..that we are expecting a happy event. Parturiunt montes.

1969 Times 20 Mar. 16/2 Aunt Juju, in her harping upon ‘happy events’..knows more about life and death than Hedda.

1995 J. Miller & M. Stacey Driving Instructor's Handbk. (ed. 8) ix. 293 Mothers-to-be are not invalids..however, they must be given some consideration particularly with regard to ensuring the happy event does not occur during the driving test.

1994 Melody Maker 22 Jan. 31/2 Where the younger kids get off on the simplistic rush of happy hardcore..the veterans want music with more complex emotions and textures.

2008 Guardian 6 Feb. (G2 section) 6/2 If you live in London, you may be labouring under the misapprehension that happy hardcore, the fast-tempoed dance music style famed for its euphoric vocals and sentimental lyrics, died a death in the late 1990s.

1914 Day Bk. (Chicago) 8 May The happy hour is really several hours set apart three nights a week for the entertainment of the crew... The entertainment consists of moving pictures, boxing bouts,..and dramatics from vaudeville to tragedy.

1951 Los Angeles Times 26 Nov. ii. 5/1 [Y]ou ought to see the stampede at a Valley tavern during its ‘Happy Hour’ from 5 to 6 p.m. when all drinks are 25 cents.

1952 All Hands Apr. 40 Ship's happy hour features real variety show with top-notch talent.

1966 W. Brinkley Ninety & Nine 25 The Navy has an institution which it calls the ‘happy hour’, a term for a recreational period such as movies, baseball, volleyball, or whatever other means of diversion may be available in the circumstances of the particular ship.

1967 Atlantic July 58/2 There have been other near tragedies which are, in retrospect, awfully good happy-hour bar stories.

1985 Times 12 Aug. 8 Most restaurants and bars have been forced to forget about ‘happy hour’ where drinks are cheaper.

2011 Time Out N.Y. 24 Mar. 14/2 You can..indulge in the anytime happy hour—just drop $20 to drink as many beers and bottom-shelf mixed drinks as you'd like for two full hours.

1562 W. Bullein Comfortable Regiment sig. B.i^v It shall be our best exchaunge, into an happie lande foreuer, where no trouble is, nor ye turning whele of Fortune.

1681 S. Colvil Mock Poem i. 100 A Message she hath tane in hand, To search for that most happy Land, Unknown to any heretofore.

1787 S. Stennett in J. Rippon Selection of Hymns 584 I stand, And cast a wishful Eye, To Canaan's fair and happy Land.

1806 ‘C. Caustic’ Democracy Unveiled (ed. 3) I. ii. 85 Such principles, alas, will flood Columbia's ‘happy land’ with blood.

1845 C. H. Bateman Children's Hymn-bk. 36 There is a happy land Far far away.

1902 Daily Chron. 6 Feb. 5/2 During the great..strike..a rhyme went round beginning ‘There is a happy land, far, far way [sic], Where no blacklegs ever go’.

1959 I. Opie & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolchildren xvii. 365 There is a happy land by the ‘Red School’ Where Miss Macdonald stands, preaching like a fool.

2011 Liverpool Echo (Nexis) 18 Apr. 36 We will always miss our Nannie, we don't really understand, our Mummy says she's happy now Nannies back with Grandad in a happy land.

1918 Sat. Evening Post 15 June 70/4 As though on a signal from a stage manager, the lights flipped on, and then together we drank the airman's toast, which is: ‘Happy landings!’

1934 Evening News 25 July 4/5 Ronnie swallowed half the whisky... ‘Happy landings, Phyllis..dear!’.. The powder left his fingers, missed the glass.

1953 P. Frankau Winged Horse iii. ii. 199 The glass lifted. ‘Happy Landings,’ Carey said.

1998 P. Jooste Dance with Poor Man's Daughter (1999) xiii. 237 We stand at our gate and wave to them and shout after them and say good luck and happy landings and all the best.

1629 S. Austin Vrania ii. 69 'Twas not in vaine I made thee feele the horrors of thy paine; But as a happie medium to enforce Thy deadned soule the sooner to remorce.

1775 E. Pendleton Let. 24 Dec. in Lett. & Papers (1967) I. 142 I hope some happy medium will be suggested to effect the purpose and make you easy.

1816 J. Austen Emma II. iii. 46 My father would say ‘yes’, Mr. Knightley, ‘no’; and Miss Bates and I that he is just the happy medium . View more context for this quotation

1901 G. Ade 40 Mod. Fables 51 Moral: only one in a thousand ever strikes the happy medium.

1946 K. Tennant Lost Haven (1947) x. 156 Ain't there no bloody happy medium?

2011 Wall St. Jrnl. 28 May d10/2 Check out the..Access to Design program—a happy medium between hiring a decorator and DIYing it.

?1610 J. Fletcher Faithfull Shepheardesse ii. sig. D4 These happy paire of louers meet straight way, Soone as they fould their flockes vp with the day.

1697 J. Dryden Alexander's Feast i. 1 The Lovely Thais by his side, Sate like a blooming Eastern Bride..Happy, happy, happy Pair!

1789 G. Parker Life's Painter xiv. 126 (title) The next song is intitled and call'd The Happy Pair.

1826 M. Wilmot Let. 19 Oct. in E. Londonderry & H. M. Hyde More Lett. M. Wilmot (1935) 252 There's a marriage, in return for your Village wedding... The happy pair are at Saltzburg.

1946 T. Rattigan Winslow Boy i. 29 Happy pair, I think, is the phrase that is eluding you.

2004 Eve Dec. 65/1 If your man has dumped you for another woman, the latest way of getting revenge is hiring a ‘couple-buster’ and breaking the happy pair up.

1956 A. Huxley Let. 14 Mar. (1969) 791 The present mass consumption of ‘Happy Pills’, (Miltown-Equanil).

1966 I. Asimov Fantastic Voy. i. 11 You've got that tranquillizer gleam in your eye, doctor. I don't need any happy pills.

2005 E. Barr Plan B (2006) xxvii. 272 I'm going to make an appointment with the doctor, and I'm going to take you there myself, and we're going to get you some happy pills.

1994 Ottawa Citizen 28 June b3/1 She was having this one contraction, and she was having a real hard time with it... I told her, ‘Think of your happy place. Find your happy place and think of how much fun we'll have there’.

2004 Chicago Tribune (Midwest ed.) 15 Feb. viii. 7 (advt.) Whether it's relaxing under the hands of a trained Swedish masseuse or swinging a club under a sunny blue sky, we will take you to your perfect ‘happy place’, mentally and physically.

2009 Times Educ. Suppl. (Nexis) 20 Mar. 40 Now when I'm annoyed, like when I'm arguing with my sister, I go to my happy place and I don't want to hit her.

1599 L. A. tr. M. Martínez Eighth Bk. Myrror of Knighthood iii. iii. xxvii. sig. Ii2 Till the raging tempest of Fortunes fury be ore-blow'n, And I of all turmoyles shall haue a happie release.

1701 J. Woodward Divine Joy Relig. 9 Religion..gives the faithful Servant of God many Promises of Divine Support and Relief, and, in due time of a happy Release from all Sorrow.

1864 C. Dickens Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy in All Year Round 1 Dec. 7/2 Then I shouldn't have the agonies of trying to understand him which was a happy release.

1929 E. Bowen Joining Charles 122 She was such a good soul—it seemed quite a happy release.

1990 Dict. Canad. Biogr. XII. 1045/2 Some Conservatives..saw the Privy Council decision as a happy release from the afflictions of the Manitoba school question.

2012 Northern Star & Rural Weekly (New S. Wales) (Nexis) 25 Jan. 23 Dying..is often a happy release for both the deceased and those who are left to grieve.

1851 Monthly Christian Spectator Dec. 778 From mists around that mark decline Condensing oft a tear, Its willow beauty, happy-sad Doth Love of Life still wear.

1966 North Adams (Mass.) Transcript 25 Mar. 12/4 For Dr Hayes it will be a happy-sad occasion.

2001 M. Blake 24 Karat Schmooze xvi. 182 ‘Ta-ra then,’ she said, crinkling her face in that happy-sad way. ‘Bye.’

1845 Southern Literary Messenger Jan. 23/2 A frank and easy association with his subordinate officers,..‘a happy ship’.

1916 ‘Taffrail’ Pincher Martin iii. 43 The Belligerent was notoriously a happy ship.

1950 W. J. M. Mackenzie in G. F. M. Campion Brit. Govt. since 1918 83 A branch or a department may be a theoretical monstrosity and yet be a ‘happy ship’; and traditionally a ‘happy ship’ is the only efficient ship.

2008 Independent on Sunday 23 Nov. (New Review) 37/1 We all share values and we all work together. It's a happy ship.

1971 N.Y. Mag. 28 June (front cover) The profitability of TV's ‘happy-talk’ news.

1973 Listener 30 Aug. 295 What Happy Talk means in fact is that the consumer-listener-viewer gets an inverted perspective of the world in which he lives. Even for domestic news, he is fed reaction rather than analysis.

1995 Inside Fort Collins (Colorado) 2 Feb. 2/3 I hunger for serious slabs of news slathered with details rather than the low-cal happy talk swill they serve up.

2011 Daily News (Jacksonville, N. Carolina) (Nexis) 9 Jan. Back in the good old days when I worked in TV news, local news was transitioning from the deadly seriousness of Walter Cronkite to what we called ‘happy talk’, where the anchors were expected to add a little light banter.

1759 S. Johnson Rasselas I. ii. 10 Here the sons and daughters of Abissinia..were daily entertained with songs, the subject of which was the happy valley.

1845 W. A. Caruthers Knights of Horse-shoe xvi. 57 ‘It is..almost a perfect terrestrial paradise, abounding in deer, elk, buffalo, and game of every sort—the land teeming with wild fruits of every kind, and bright with the purest fountains of water that ever gushed from the solid rocks.’ ‘O aye, I know that is your opinion, but..you were a mere boy when you left that happy valley’.

1938 D. Du Maurier Rebecca x. 130 On either side of the narrow path stood azaleas and rhododendrons,..things of beauty and grace... ‘We call it the Happy Valley,’ he said.

2002 Observer (Nexis) 27 Oct. 56 The media trumpets the message that sex brings happiness. If this were true, we would indeed live in an earthly paradise and the world would be ‘happy valley’.

1596 Z. Jones tr. M. Barleti Hist. G. Castriot v. 172 I will see from whence he hath that corporall strength and vigour: and in what this happie warriour..doth excell and surpasse all others.

1693 N. Lee in J. Dryden Examen Poeticum iii. 168 Hail, happy Warriour! hail! whose Arms have won The fairest Jewel in the English Crown.

1785 J. Champion tr. Firdawsī Poems viii. 305 With the first dawn the happy warior [sic] rose.

1806 W. Wordsworth Char. Happy Warrior 1 Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be?

1915 D. O. Barnett Let. 17 May in In Happy Memory 200 The ‘happy warrior’ who did the deed is in my platoon, one Finlay, and his hair is red.

1924 F. D. Roosevelt in N.Y. Times 27 June 4/3 He [sc. Alfred E. Smith] is the ‘Happy Warrior’ of the political battlefield.

1959 Listener 12 Nov. 843/3 Ernest Jones was a happy warrior.

2006 New Yorker 30 Oct. 51/2 As for Jim Webb, he seemed, by the ending days of the campaign, only to be something less than the Happy Warrior.

1600 N. Breton Mad-cappes Message in Pasquils Mad-cap 29 While onely Trueth that walkes by Wisedomes line, Happieth the heart and makes the soule diuine.

1609 W. Shakespeare Sonnets vi. sig. B2 That vse is not forbidden vsery, Which happies those that pay the willing lone.

1632 T. Heywood 2nd Pt. Iron Age sig. I3^v We are happied euer.

1877 P. J. Bailey Festus (ed. 10) xxiii. 368 Her heart he loved, Would the whole firmament of his life exhaust In happying her, unnoisefully.

1907 Junior Herald 24 Aug. 333/3 O mother, Walter was cross, but I happied him up so that he got all over it.

1983 Car & Driver Dec. 14/1 This also happied me (new word, ‘happied’). When you think about it, there's probably nothing better than a ‘virgin California virgin aluminum Moon wheel disk’.

1999 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 7 Nov. (Mag.) 5/3 And happied it up a bit, of course.