Occasional

How to spell occasional

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce occasional

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does occasional mean?

1. adjectiveHappening or done from time to time rather than regularly or often.

Occasional in a sentence

• She enjoys an occasional glass of wine with dinner.

• The forecast warns of occasional showers throughout the afternoon.

Where does occasional come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin occasio, meaning an 'opportunity' or a 'fitting moment', which itself grew from the verb occidere, 'to fall down' or 'to befall', formed from ob- ('toward, against') and cadere ('to fall'). The underlying image is of something that simply falls into place at a particular time, so an 'occasion' was originally a moment when circumstances happened to come together. English took 'occasion' through Old French in the 1300s, and the adjective 'occasional' followed, first describing something tied to a specific occasion and later meaning 'happening now and then'. The same cadere root that supplies the doubled c and single s also lives inside 'accident', 'cadence', and 'coincide', all carrying that sense of falling or befalling. The classic spelling trap, two c's followed by a single s, is exactly what the Latin oc- plus cas structure predicts.

How the word is built

• oc- (variant of ob-: toward, against)
• cas (from Latin cadere: to fall)
• -ion (noun)
• -al (adjective suffix)