occasionally
oc·ca·sion·al·ly/əˈkeɪʒənəli/adverb
occasionally is spelled O-C-C-A-S-I-O-N-A-L-L-Y, 5 syllables: oc·ca·sion·al·ly. The wrong spelling people search most is occassionally: about 570 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Occasionally is an adverb meaning “On occasion: at relatively infrequent intervals, from time to time, sometimes”.
How many letters and syllables are in occasionally?
| Letters | 12: O-C-C-A-S-I-O-N-A-L-L-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 5: oc·ca·sion·al·ly |
| In writing | 25 times per million words; the 3,683rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 9; the most searched, occassionally, about 570 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell occasionally?
Occasionally is spelled O-C-C-A-S-I-O-N-A-L-L-Y. 9 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for occasionally in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is occasionally?
Occasionally appears 25 times per million words in written English, the 3,683rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce occasionally?
- /əˈkeɪʒənəli/
- /əˈkeɪʒnəli/
- /əˈkeɪʒənli/
Occasionally has 5 syllables, split oc·ca·sion·al·ly in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-occasionally.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of occasionally
- more occasionally comparative
- most occasionally superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does occasionally mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adverb
- 1
On occasion: at relatively infrequent intervals, from time to time, sometimes.
- 2
obsoleteOn an occasion, accidentally, by chance.
I had met Lord Ossory in the forenoon, who had come to town occasionally.
- 3
obsoleteOn the occasion of something else happening; incidentally, by the way.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Occasionally in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense at relatively infrequent intervals:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | occasionnellement |
| German | gelegentlich |
| Portuguese | ocasionalmente |
| Spanish | ocasionalmente, de vez en cuando, a veces |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does occasionally come from?
From Middle English occasionally, occasionaly, occasyoneely, occasyonly, equivalent to occasional + -ly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).