occupy
Americanverb (used with object)
-
occupies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
occupied,
past participle, past
-
occupying
present participle
-
to take or fill up (space, time, etc.).
I occupied my evenings reading novels.
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to engage or employ the mind, energy, or attention of.
Occupy the children with a game while I prepare dinner.
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to be a resident or tenant of; dwell in.
We occupied the same house for 20 years.
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to hold (a position, office, etc.).
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to take possession and control of (a place), as by military invasion.
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Usually Occupy to participate in a protest about (a social or political issue), as by taking possession or control of buildings or public places that are symbolic of the issue.
Let’s Occupy our voting rights!
The Occupy Wall Street movement of late 2011 was a protest against economic inequality.
verb (used without object)
-
occupies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
occupied,
past participle, past
-
occupying
present participle
-
to take or hold possession.
-
Usually Occupy to participate in a protest about a social or political issue.
adjective
verb
-
to live or be established in (a house, flat, office, etc)
-
(often passive) to keep (a person) busy or engrossed; engage the attention of
-
(often passive) to take up (a certain amount of time or space)
-
to take and hold possession of, esp as a demonstration
students occupied the college buildings
-
to fill or hold (a position or rank)
Synonym Usage
See have.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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occupysimple
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occupiessimple
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have occupiedperfect
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has occupiedperfect
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am occupyingprogressive
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are occupyingprogressive
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is occupyingprogressive
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have been occupyingperfect progressive
-
has been occupyingperfect progressive
Past
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occupiedsimple
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had occupiedperfect
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was occupyingprogressive
-
were occupyingprogressive
-
had been occupyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of occupy
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English occupien, from Middle French occuper, from Latin occupāre “to seize, take hold, take up, make one's own,” equivalent to oc- oc- + -cup-, combining form of capere “to take, seize” + -āre infinitive suffix
Explanation
When you spend a lot of your free time reading tea leaves, you occupy yourself with that pastime, meaning it takes up your time and keeps you busy. An army can invade another country and occupy its territory, and this use of the word reflects its original Latin meaning, which was "to seize." There are also less aggressive forms of occupation, as with the family of chipmunks who occupy your garden. If you are the mayor of your town, you occupy an important office. And if you're a fan of Andy Warhol, a series of Campbell's soup can paintings may occupy a prominent place on your walls.
Vocabulary lists containing occupy
The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 2
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The ACT Reading Test: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 2
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The New SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Admittedly, times have changed, and yes, everyone has a small computer in their pocket and myriad ways to occupy their time before the show starts.
From Salon ● Oct. 21, 2026
A surviving spouse has the right to occupy the homestead for the rest of their life, even if it is separate property or was gifted to a third party.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
Rather than acting individually, three molecules occupy a specific pocket within the protein.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 20, 2026
Store directors occupy an important position in the effort to grow the customer base.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
I love seeing his neighborhood through his eyes, the way his memories occupy every block.
From "What If It's Us" by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
Those words capture a central tension in the sprawling show, which occupies interconnected galleries at the far end of the museum’s Resnick Pavilion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
"Samuel occupies an important place in the historical narrative both in Bulgaria and in North Macedonia," Dimitar Bechev, a researcher at the Carnegie Europe think tank, told AFP.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
Mango House, LXR The 41-room boutique hotel on Mahé, the country’s largest island, occupies the former home of fashion photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Homo erectus, or H.erectus, occupies an important place in human evolutionary history because it was the first species in the genus Homo known to have migrated out of Africa.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026
A large table occupies that space, covered with tools and scraps of metal and gears and old computer parts and wires.
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
At Rome's occupied Morgagni high school, where students have barricaded entrances with desks, protesters pointed to the crumbling infrastructure as evidence of neglect.
From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2026
KYIV, Ukraine—As six Ukrainian drones buzzed toward a Russian army warehouse in occupied eastern Ukraine on Monday, the pilots found their connections disrupted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
In the occupied West Bank, the WFP is continuing to give assistance to some 200,000 Palestinians, having halved the number of recipients in September.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
The researchers call this unusual arrangement a fractional Fermi sea because its particles appear to obey a modified rule governing how quantum states are occupied.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2026
It occupied the space of nearly forty football fields.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
And so, that actually is what’s been occupying me in large part for the last 10+ years in my research.
From Slate ● Oct. 17, 2026
Germany gained control of the facility after occupying Norway in April 1940.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026
Then come Bradford Bulls and Huddersfield Giants, with Toulouse Olympique and York Knights, occupying 13th and 14th, albeit with higher scores than last year.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Currently occupying a repurposed warehouse near the farmers market, the museum is set to move to a new site with twice the gallery space in 2029.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
The mood at Olive Garden last night was so jovial, so exciting, and so totally different from the thick silence occupying the car today.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
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