Occur

How to spell occur

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce occur

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does occur mean?

1. verbTo take place or come about, usually without being planned.
2. verbTo come into someone's mind as a thought or idea.

Occur in a sentence

• Power cuts often occur during the worst of the winter storms.

• It did not occur to her that the meeting had been moved.

• Such delays can occur whenever the airport is short of staff.

• A simpler solution may occur to you after a good night's sleep.

Where does occur come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Occur comes from the Latin verb occurrere, which literally meant 'to run toward' or 'to run to meet', built from the prefix ob- ('toward' or 'against', here softened to oc- before the c) and currere ('to run'). The original image was of something physically running up to meet a person, and from there the sense shifted naturally to 'to present itself' and then to 'to happen'. English took the word in during the early sixteenth century, first in the sense of a thought presenting itself to the mind and soon in the everyday sense of an event taking place. The same currere root that powers occur also gives us 'current', 'cursor', 'recur' and 'excursion', all carrying that idea of running. A useful spelling note: the base form occur has a single r, but the doubling rule kicks in for the stressed final syllable, so the inflected forms gain a second r in occurred and occurrence.

How the word is built

• oc- (variant of ob-: toward, against)
• cur (from currere: to run)