oc·cu·py

(ŏk′yə-pī′)

tr.v. oc·cu·pied, oc·cu·py·ing, oc·cu·pies

1. To fill up (time or space): a lecture that occupied three hours.

2. To dwell or reside in (an apartment, for example).

3. To hold or fill (an office or position).

4. To seize possession of and maintain control over forcibly or by conquest: The troops occupied the city.

5. To engage or employ the attention or concentration of: occupied the children with coloring books.

[Middle English occupien, alteration of Old French occuper, from Latin occupāre, to seize : ob-, intensive pref.; see ob- + capere, to take; see kap- in Indo-European roots.]

oc′cu·pi′er n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

occupied

(ˈɒkjʊpaɪd)

adj

1. busy doing or thinking about something: keep the brain occupied!; she was fully occupied with driving.

2. in use and so not available for anyone else

3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) politics under the control of an occupying military force

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.	1.	occupied - held or filled or in use; "she keeps her time well occupied"; "the wc is occupied" unoccupied - not held or filled or in use; "an unoccupied telephone booth"; "unoccupied hours"
	2.	occupied - seized and controlled as by military invasion; "the occupied countries of Europe" unoccupied - not seized and controlled; "unoccupied areas of France"
	3.	occupied - resided in; having tenants; "not all the occupied (or tenanted) apartments were well kept up" tenanted inhabited - having inhabitants; lived in; "the inhabited regions of the earth"
	4.	occupied - having ones attention or mind or energy engaged; "she keeps herself fully occupied with volunteer activities"; "deeply engaged in conversation" engaged busy - actively or fully engaged or occupied; "busy with her work"; "a busy man"; "too busy to eat lunch"

occupied

adjective

1. in use, taken, full, engaged, unavailable three beds, two of which were occupied

2. inhabited, peopled, lived-in, settled, tenanted The house was occupied by successive generations of farmers.
inhabited empty, deserted, vacant, uninhabited, unoccupied, untenanted, tenantless

3. busy, engaged, employed, working, active, tied up (informal), engrossed, hard at work, in harness, hard at it (informal), rushed off your feet I forgot about it because I was so occupied with other things.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

occupied

adjective

Involved in activity or work:

busy, employed, engaged.

Translations

obsazenýokupovaný

κατεχόμενος

ocupado

hõivatudokupeeritud

varattu

occupato

занятый

zaposlenzaseden

occupied

[ˈɒkjʊpaɪd] adj

(= busy) [person] → occupé(e)
to keep sb occupied → occuper qn
Keep the brain occupied! → Occupez-vous l'esprit!
to be occupied with sth → être occupé à qch
to be occupied with doing sth → être occupé à faire qch

[seat, place] → occupé(e)
That seat is occupied → Cette place est occupée.

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

occupied

adj

house, room → belegt; a room occupied by four people → ein von vier Personen bewohntes Zimmer; is this seat occupied? → ist dieser Platz belegt?

(Mil etc) country, territory → besetzt

(= busy) → beschäftigt; to be occupied with something → mit etw beschäftigt sein; to keep somebody occupied → jdn beschäftigen; that’ll keep him occupied → dann hat er was zu tun, dann ist er beschäftigt; he kept his mind occupied → er beschäftigte sich geistig

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

If the enemy has occupied them before you, do not follow him, but retreat and try to entice him away.

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The vital difference between the game played with living men and that in which inanimate pieces are used, lies in the fact that while in the latter the mere placing of a piece upon a square occupied by an opponent piece terminates the move, in the former the two pieces thus brought together engage in a duel for possession of the square.

In the three squares allowed him he could not place himself squarely upon the square occupied by the Odwar of U-Dor's Princess.

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I remembered, to my shame, that my mother had but seldom occupied my thoughts.

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It's too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French army!"

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The next day, a gentleman and his wife (perfect strangers to the Montbarry family), returning to England by way of Venice, arrived at the hotel and occupied Number Fourteen.

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No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was confused.

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All that Magdalen could do in her own defense was to keep the instinctive female suspicion of her confined within those purely negative limits which it had occupied from the first, and this she accomplished.

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He had the roads about the castle far and near, everywhere he thought Don Quixote was likely to pass on his return, occupied by large numbers of his servants on foot and on horseback, who were to bring him to the castle, by fair means or foul, if they met him.

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"Ellen can manage the rest." She kept the young woman occupied in the drawing-room, unwilling to be left alone with Arobin.

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For the next month, occupied with my own affairs, I saw no one connected with this lamentable business, and my mind ceased to be occupied with it.

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"Come with me," he directed, and together we moved off across the plaza to a building which I was glad to see adjoined that occupied by Sola and her charges.

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