verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
an occupied country (=controlled by an army from another country)
▪ For many years, Egypt was an occupied country.
an occupying army (=one that is in a foreign country which they control by force)
▪ There was constant resistance to the occupying army.
keep sb busy/amused/occupied
▪ some toys to keep the kids amused
occupied territory (=land that is controlled by a foreign country or its army)
▪ America has always wanted Israel to give up some of the occupied territory.
occupy a position
▪ Those who occupy positions of power do not want democracy.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
already
▪ No, her servant's quarters were already occupied.
▪ Clinton is the sixth president of the postwar era to win election to the White House while already occupying the Oval Office.
▪ The back of a hearse which is already occupied.
▪ Three of the four blocks of flats are already occupied and the remaining block will be completed shortly.
▪ Guards led us into a cell that was already occupied by a woman.
▪ The Diocese already occupies the premises as tenant, and no change of use is contemplated.
▪ But there seemed no one about who was not already occupied with his own legitimate business.
formerly
▪ Further down is the factory formerly occupied by Bassett Lowke, the world famous model-making firm.
▪ Much of the added land will consume an area formerly occupied by the 1, 000-foot-long Fleishhacker swimming pool.
fully
▪ Are not Earth's children fully occupied with human inventions?
▪ My mind was on my work, and I had never been more fully occupied.
▪ The four beds in the lying-in ward were usually fully occupied.
▪ He was always friendly enough, but seemed fully occupied with the bevy of young beach-boys who seemed to swarm around him.
▪ But I had many other interests which kept me fully occupied at the time.
▪ The reason that Leith did not immediately answer was that her brain was fully occupied.
▪ The department is extremely busy and all existing machine and labour capacity is fully occupied.
▪ Johnny was by now fully occupied with the fastenings on the controversial halter-necked garment.
now
▪ Once a casualty of war itself, now occupied by the peace keepers.
▪ So what did it mean, that the Communists now occupied the region?
▪ A biology student with a stutter now occupied the back room.
▪ The warehouse space has been renovated and is now occupied by a variety of new businesses.
▪ His position is now occupied by the ballerina and her partner or a soloist.
▪ The prison stood on the site now occupied by the Tate Gallery.
▪ The Efta states now occupy a position within a free-trade area, but outside Political union.
▪ Government troops have been defeated and the Khmer Rouge now occupy Pailin.
once
▪ These will include the building on the north side of the street that the Sixth Street Pub once occupied.
▪ Recently, the building once occupied by Pizza City was put up for rent.
still
▪ The building was still occupied, then.
▪ Through the late 1930s and 1940s, buildings were sold or left to deteriorate, though still occupied by stars.
▪ Present Hall built by Smiths of Warwick in 1690s and still occupied by the Cave family.
▪ They are still occupied by things like MIAs, prisoners of war, refugees, things of the past.
▪ Seven years after the Oslo accords several thousand settlers still occupy 40 % of the Gaza Strip.
▪ In fact, human workers still occupy the most critical jobs - those where judgment and evaluation are essential.
▪ The subject still occupied Charles's mind later that night.
▪ In agriculture, which still occupied 27 percent of the workforce, underemployment was estimated to be high.
■ NOUN
area
▪ Customs occupy a self-contained area within accommodation provided for freight companies requiring offices without warehousing.
▪ These tracts of greatest housing need and highest minority and low-income concentration occupy most of the area known as South Phoenix.
▪ Terri's personal space occupied an area roughly the size of Mull and therefore required vigorous defences.
▪ Regularly, where intensive cultivation succeeds, civilized people in the Far East occupy only small areas.
▪ Ingleborough's many tops, pavements and moors occupy a large complex area which takes many visits to really get to know.
▪ Though with its own entrance, the photographic Salon occupied an area tout a cote that reserved for painting and sculpture.
▪ It occupies an area of approximately 20 hectares and includes an administration block for the courts and associated administrative staff.
▪ The huge opencast Dixon's site currently occupies this area.
attention
▪ The consequence may well be the forms of bureaucracy that so occupy the attention of administrative reformers.
▪ Other questions occupy his active attention, but this is the constant.
▪ Project management is therefore a matter which should begin to occupy the attention of the various bodies involved in harmonization.
building
▪ May I ask who is going to occupy these buildings?
▪ The bank already owns or occupies several building nearby, plus much of the adjacent site, which includes the NatWest tower.
▪ Hunt told Hall's Committee that it occupied seventeen different buildings of which seven were requisitioned during the war.
▪ It occupied an entire building and was similar in capacity to the programmable pocket calculator that one now buys at the stationers.
▪ The present Government, like its predecessor, has urged organisations and institutions occupying non-domestic buildings to reduce their fuel consumption.
centre
▪ Control of the money supply should occupy centre stage in the conduct of macroeconomic policy.
▪ The prime mover of all generation is said to be the goddess Necessity, who occupies the centre of the universe.
▪ Art occupies the centre from which nature is now absent.
▪ They appear to occupy the centre of the stage, but in what guise?
▪ The most important other piece is an upper torso of Athena, who occupied the centre of the gable.
▪ It didn't occupy the centre of the room, however.
chair
▪ He would have asked her to sit down but as he was occupying the only chair in the room he couldn't.
▪ Celestine, still steaming, occupied the easy chair, while Stafford sat by the table wolfing down a plate of leftovers.
▪ The leader of the council will usually occupy the chair of this committee or its equivalent.
▪ An old man had occupied the lipstick-red lounge chair beside her.
▪ Rev. P. Stewart was to occupy the Chair.
family
▪ Present Hall built by Smiths of Warwick in 1690s and still occupied by the Cave family.
▪ Sheffield lives across the street on a block where five of the six houses are occupied by family members.
▪ In any case, occupying families may also be victims of war.
▪ This is land recently occupied by 16 families.
▪ And in some ways that was the position she had occupied in her family.
▪ Here the houses would be occupied by one family and not by a dozen or more assorted tenants.
▪ The next house had been occupied by the Dear Family for several generations.
floor
▪ Troops occupy the top floors of several high-rise buildings in both north and west Belfast.
▪ Our offices when I began occupied two small doughnut-shaped floors in a building owned by Morgan Guaranty in the City.
▪ The institution occupies three floors of a former textile factory which is lit by windows on both sides.
▪ A drug store occupies the bottom floor, Petkus said, with refrigeration machinery installed on the second floor.
▪ It occupied the top floor of the hotel and allowed spectacular views of the city.
▪ Exhibit is free, and occupies the main floor, third floor and Special Collections lobby.
▪ No one stays visible for long as snipers occupy the upper floors of those buildings left standing.
forces
▪ A third of it was occupied by the surrendering forces.
▪ The occupying forces generally stay within their heavily fortified garrisons for fear of attack.
ground
▪ Catholic graves, ancient and modern, occupied most of the ground.
▪ It was large, occupying most of the ground floor of the house.
▪ Their origins and histories are varied, but all occupy ground that was previously glaciated and many are ancient.
▪ Apples grown in the integrated orchard occupied the metaphorical middle ground.
▪ It occupied the moral high ground and refused to budge.
▪ Mr Aznar has successfully occupied the centre ground.
▪ The key Labour politician, Ramsay MacDonald, was equally eager to occupy the middle ground.
home
▪ Small households that don't use much water but occupy homes with high rateable values could be much better off.
▪ Sales of previously occupied homes fell for a second straight month by 6.6 percent, the National Association of Realtors reported yesterday.
house
▪ At one time a fifth of the town was occupied by religious houses or mission centres.
▪ At the age of eighty-six, she occupied the largest house in the village, with the most sweeping view.
▪ Vitor might not have been aware that she occupied the house, yet he had amassed some items of information about her.
▪ Women orbited about surfers on the beach; they clung to them in cars; they occupied their houses in loose liaisons.
▪ The main cause is family breakdown; with divorce and children leaving home, one family may occupy three houses.
▪ Mrs Bujok and her family occupied a house as council tenants.
▪ Donald lived on the premises and occupied the house at the end of the yard.
▪ As the plaintiff had ceased to occupy the house, it was likely that she was not covered by insurance.
land
▪ Much more interesting are the larger complexes which occupy the vacant land immediately behind the main frontages.
▪ The Army was the first service to occupy the land at present-day Miramar and called it Camp Kearny.
▪ Jacob's dying blessing focusses on the distant future, when the descendants of these twelve will occupy the promised land.
▪ Crofting townships occupy this land which is largely fenced and comprises improved grasslands.
▪ So we decided to occupy some unused land owned by Don Juan Lopez, the big landowner of our region.
▪ The protest came after police, supported by soldiers, had evicted squatters occupying unused private land.
▪ Some farm workers on occupied land have been burned out of their homes which have then been looted.
▪ One of the first tasks of the Habsburgs was to induce settlers to occupy the empty lands.
mind
▪ They had other problems now to occupy their minds, as well as Balliol's whereabouts.
▪ But ah, how I need some more engaging puzzle to occupy my mind today.
▪ There are very many ways of course to occupy the mind and the techniques we describe are only a few suggestions for practice.
▪ It occupied his mind, too, shrinking his vision of the sea clock.
▪ So the season continued and the World Championships in Rome began more and more to occupy my mind.
▪ I feel it was important that the men had work to do that occupied their minds and bodies.
▪ She also had enough at Usher to occupy her mind without fretting about future possibilities.
▪ Temporary relief from worry and anxiety can be achieved by totally occupying the mind with something else.
owner
▪ That provision allows owners to evict tenants if the unit is to be occupied by the owner or an immediate relative.
part
▪ It's a completely different department from ours, but they occupy that part of the building for good reasons.
▪ Phoenix will occupy part of the offices of Automated Communications Inc., a long-distance switching company that it acquired last year.
▪ The viticultural zone occupies that part of Champagne known as the falaises or Champagne cliffs.
▪ Still, it is indisputable that numbers, facts, rules, and things occupied a large part of his mental universe.
▪ Her objective was to acquire Transylvania, and she now at once invaded that country and quickly occupied the greater part of it.
▪ The loss of activity Work will have usually occupied a considerable part of an individual's life prior to retirement.
▪ Midland Chandlers occupies a large part of the new shop.
▪ They are drastic pieces of legislation which should rightly occupy a large part of the time of the House.
percent
▪ It is said that private gardens occupy 3 percent of the land surface of Britain.
▪ Counselors in more than 60 percent of the schools surveyed estimated that these students occupied only 5 percent of their career-counseling time.
▪ Long- and cheap-haul facilities were vital in a poor country occupying 17 percent of the inhabited surface of the earth.
▪ When the slow waves occupy 50 percent or more of the record the subject is judged to be in Stage 4 sleep.
▪ In agriculture, which still occupied 27 percent of the workforce, underemployment was estimated to be high.
▪ Hummocky moraines Morainic drift with a typical hummocky landform occupies about 10 percent of the Outer Hebrides.
▪ They occupy about 50 percent of all hospital beds.
person
▪ Discomfort is easier to ignore if the person is occupied, and appears worse when attention is focused solely upon it.
▪ The preliminary enquiry of a seller as to what other persons occupy the property is one precaution.
▪ This was another case which homeless persons occupying temporary accommodation.
▪ The time had come for a deaf person to occupy it and Hudson's chairmanship therefore lasted only three years.
▪ But it was depressing, too, because he did not know a single person who occupied them.
place
▪ However, photography occupies a peculiar place among those activities, as pictures are themselves carriers of meanings and interpretations.
▪ We occupy a high place in this land.
▪ It came to occupy a unique place in constitutional law.
▪ Gandhi could have returned to the train and occupied a place in third class.
▪ In our wishful thinking about the 1960s, no figures occupy a more prominent place than the Kennedys.
▪ Two particulars simultaneously occupying two different places are in virtue of this very fact two different particulars.
▪ The usual group of shops occupies the market place today, with a new up-to-date health centre.
position
▪ There is a third position, one perhaps occupied by Rawls himself in his bleaker moments.
▪ Point-factor systems tend to emphasize paying people for the positions they occupy rather than the skills they possess or their performance.
▪ That is a curious position to occupy.
▪ His position is now occupied by the ballerina and her partner or a soloist.
▪ And in some ways that was the position she had occupied in her family.
▪ We have already alluded in Chapter 2 to the prominent position this occupied in earlier Chomskyan grammar.
▪ It is the position their family occupies in the hierarchy of their particular community in Britain.
premises
▪ The Diocese already occupies the premises as tenant, and no change of use is contemplated.
▪ At the London School of Economics the students had occupied the premises in February 1967 as their struggle intensified.
role
▪ Motor buses occupy a relatively minor role in the period covered by this volume.
▪ The regional managers occupy a crucial role in providing a strategic framework for management of the Teacher Placement Service.
▪ The organisation employs 13 employees, four of whom occupy management roles.
▪ Surprisingly, among the inside players the bureaucracy did not occupy a particularly important role.
▪ It is taken for granted that men do and should occupy the leadership roles and make the important decisions.
▪ Her long-term goal is the re-establishment of a society in which the Church once more occupies this central role.
room
▪ Although Joseph Hyde had occupied the room for nearly eight years, he had done nothing to personalize it.
▪ They occupied a room on the first floor for three hours before being evicted.
▪ Our residents occupying rooms are not as well integrated in the community as those who share.
▪ A biology student with a stutter now occupied the back room.
▪ Lucas had not occupied his room for six or seven years.
▪ Trippy occupied the front ground-floor room and a local Islington councillor lived in the basement.
seat
▪ Chalky footprints in the back of the car suggest two men joined Mr Abberley, occupying the rear seats.
▪ It came to occupy the seat of highest honour in their gospel.
▪ When they spotted my camera, polling officers hurriedly occupied their seats, but there were no voters to be found.
▪ But that is what has happened in Kent, where Conservative Keith Ferrin now occupies two seats on the council.
▪ I accepted the invitation to occupy the right-hand seat and play the role of captain.
site
▪ Solid carbon dioxide has a similar structure with the C02 molecules occupying the lattice sites.
▪ It occupies the site of a former school that was razed by fire.
▪ As they often occupy cramped sites, London Board schools are usually multi-storey buildings.
▪ The looms were used in local cottages, and warehouses occupied much of this site.
▪ A block of flats now occupies the site.
▪ Caldaire occupies the Grange Road site which has been earmarked.
▪ Some travellers occupy the site legally after a festival last weekend.
▪ Individuals then occupy particular feeding sites in the trees and there is competition for the best ones.
space
▪ Women are not only the embodiment of heavenly qualities but can also aspire t find and occupy a heavenly space.
▪ Formerly, it occupied a smaller space a few blocks south on Spring Street.
▪ Although it occupies much space, it is very tiny.
▪ He also will begin work on the unit he plans to occupy and on ground-floor spaces.
▪ Inside there were some long wooden huts which occupied almost all the space.
▪ As we used to say, and sometimes still do, she occupied her space.
▪ Four semi-roundels occupy the spaces between the arms of the saltire.
territory
▪ The cheaper RISC-based machines are likely to impinge directly on the territory occupied by the company's newly announced Pentium machines.
▪ For the Soviet Union, the return to any nation of territory occupied during the war would create a dangerous precedent.
▪ The resolution reaffirmed the dejure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to all territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.
▪ Within the territory occupied by the Slavs were many non-Slavs.
thought
▪ Syd's health was the subject which chiefly occupied the thoughts of the majority.
▪ Marge, occupied with her thoughts, got in quietly beside her.
▪ It was a fancy which occupied their thoughts by day and their dreams by night.
▪ There remained the problem of how to occupy his thoughts as he followed the old man.
time
▪ Nurturing this side of the business - with dramatic success - has occupied most of his time for the past 10 years.
▪ To his left were the small eerie rooms inside boxes with which Susan was beginning to occupy her time.
▪ Of course, Alladice can occupy his time in custody by lodging any number of formal complaints.
▪ Key concerns are likely to be the question of money and how you will occupy your time.
▪ Their maintenance should occupy the time of the aquarist as little as possible.
▪ The castle was occupied until fairly recent times.
▪ Quite how Rex and Loi occupied their time in the forward cabin was a mystery.
■ VERB
continue
▪ Alongside the new-fangled blast furnace the traditional bloom process must have continued to occupy many people for short periods every year.
▪ Early into the strike, the university backed down, but a small core of radical students continued to occupy the campus.
▪ Yet, incredibly, young rabbits can continue to occupy another section of the same burrow system and thrive near the earth.
▪ Your clocks are equally valid only if you each continue to occupy an inertial reference frame.
keep
▪ She hoped they kept him occupied all day.
▪ Just enough flexing light to keep the room occupied.
▪ Inertia has kept the sites occupied, but functionally many of them are not related to their countryside surroundings.
▪ I try to be a cheerful person. Keep myself occupied.
▪ Ever since I was a child I've liked to be alone, to play alone, to keep myself occupied alone.
▪ Garry Shandling has a couple of film commitments that will keep him too occupied to work on the show.
▪ Meanwhile some men were kept occupied on poor veins in the Keswick area.
▪ It kept me occupied in otherwise hopeless situations.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Fishing occupies most of my spare time.
▪ Movie stars occupy the large suites on the third floor.
▪ The cafe occupies a single dimly lit room.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Agonists are substances which are so similar to a specific neurotransmitter they can occupy that neurotransmitter's receptor perfectly.
▪ Debates within the social sciences have occupied an intellectual space which has drawn upon both scientific models and the humanities.
▪ He, Kramer, occupied some uncertain position in the middle.
▪ The loss of activity Work will have usually occupied a considerable part of an individual's life prior to retirement.