The broad, default word for the whole family.
The broad, default word for the whole family — a lasting sense that one's life is going well and feels good to live, an overall condition rather than a momentary high.
The most general term here, and the only one that comfortably names an enduring condition (a happy life, marriage, or year) rather than a passing reaction. Diffuse and durable, needing no specific trigger, pitched at warmth rather than excitement. Joy is more intense and demonstrative; gladness is milder and tied to a cause; cheerfulness is outward manner rather than inner state; delight is a sharp reaction to a specific thing; contentment is more passive and settled.
1520s, “good fortune,” from happy + -ness; the sense “pleasant and contented mental state” is from the 1590s. Happy itself (late 14c.) derives from hap “chance, luck” — so the root meaning is “lucky,” as in most European words for happy.
Shifted from external “good fortune / luck” to internal “contented mental state” by the 1590s; the “good fortune” sense is now obsolete. No reliable evidence of a distinct recent-generation shift (stated as a sourced non-finding, not a claim).