occupy
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: ŏʹ-kyo͝o-pī
ipa: /ˈɒkjʊpaɪ/
ipa: /ˈɑkjəpaɪ/
Forms: form: occupies
form: occupying
form: occupied
form: occupied
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: occupy
form: occupy
form: occupied
form: occupy
form: occupiest
form: occupied
form: occupies
form: occupieth
form: occupied
form: occupy
form: occupied
form: occupy
form: occupied
form: occupy
form: -
form: occupying
form: occupied
Etymology: From Middle English occupien, occupyen, borrowed from Old French occuper, from Latin occupāre (“to take possession of, seize, occupy, take up, employ”), from ob (“to, on”) + capiō (“to take”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p- (“to seize, grab”). Doublet of occupate, now obsolete.
Senses: examples: text: The film occupied three hours of my time.
text: I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
glosses: To take or use.
To fill.
raw_tags: of time
examples: text: The film occupied me for three hours.
text: I occupy myself with gardening for a few hours every day.
glosses: To take or use.
To possess or use the time or capacity of; to engage the service of.
raw_tags: of time
examples: text: I occupy the post of deputy cat catcher.
glosses: To take or use.
To fill or hold (an official position or role).
raw_tags: of time
examples: text: I occupied her friend while he made his proposal.
glosses: To take or use.
To hold the attention of.
raw_tags: of time
examples: text: The historic mansion occupied two city blocks.
glosses: To take or use space.
To fill space.
examples: text: The better apartments were already occupied.
ref: 1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], Tales of a Traveller, (please specify |part=1 to 4), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […], →OCLC:
text: With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get[…]
ref: 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:
glosses: To take or use space.
To live or reside in.
examples: text: The Japanese can occupy but cannot hold, and what they can hold they cannot hold long, was the opinion of General Pai Chung-hsi, Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese Army, […]
ref: 1940, The China monthly review, volumes 94-95, page 370:
text: Rupert, with his usual untamable energy, was scouring the country — but at first in the wrong direction, that of Aylesbury, another keypoint in the outer ring of Oxford defences, which he occupied but could not hold.
ref: 1975, Esmé Cecil Wingfield-Stratford, King Charles and King Pym, 1637-1643, page 330:
text: One of the rebel marksmen, who had taken up position on a boulder, was knocked off it by the recoil of his weapon every time he fired. Again the attack achieved nothing. Positions were occupied, but could not be held.
ref: 1983, Arthur Keppel-Jones, Rhodes and Rhodesia: The White Conquest of Zimbabwe, 1884-1902, page 462:
text: Germany occupied France for three years while France struggled to make payments that were a condition of surrender.
ref: 1991, Werner Spies, John William Gabriel, Max Ernst collages: the invention of the surrealist universe, page 333:
text: Spain occupied, but could not populate, and its failure to expand Florida led Britain to consider the peninsula a logical extension of its colonial holdings.
ref: 2006, John Michael Francis, Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History, page 496:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: To take or use space.
To have, or to have taken, possession or control of (a territory).
topics: geography
natural-sciences
surveying
glosses: To take or use space.
To place the theodolite or total station at (a point).
examples: text: God's light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word 'occupy;' which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:
text: 1867, Robert Nares A Glossary
OCCUPY, [sensu obsc.] To possess, or enjoy.
These villains will make the word captain, as odious as the word occupy. 2 Hen. IV, ii, 4.
Groyne, come of age, his state sold out of hand
For 's whore; Groyne still doth occupy his land. B. Jons. Epigr., 117.
Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words, as occupy, nature, and the like. Ibid., Discoveries, vol. vii, p. 119.
It is so used also in Rowley's New Wonder, Anc. Dr., v, 278.
glosses: To have sexual intercourse with.
examples: text: All the ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee to occupy the merchandise.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 27:9:
text: not able to occupy their old crafts
ref: 1551, Ralph Robinson (tr.), Sir Thomas More's Utopia (in Latin), 1516
glosses: To do business in; to busy oneself with.
examples: text: all the gold that was occupied for the work
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 38:24:
text: They occupy not money themselves.
ref: 1551, Ralph Robinson (tr.), Sir Thomas More's Utopia (in Latin), 1516
glosses: To use; to expend; to make use of.
Synonyms: sense: to possess or use the time or capacity of
word: employ
sense: to possess or use the time or capacity of
word: busy
sense: to have sexual intercourse with
word: coitize
word: go to bed with
word: sleep with
word: copulate with
Derived terms: cooccupy
deoccupy
misoccupy
multioccupy
nonoccupying
occupiable
occupier
occupy oneself
preoccupy
reoccupy
Related terms: occupant
occupation