occur
/əˈkɝ/verb
occur is spelled O-C-C-U-R. The wrong spelling people search most is occurr: about 120 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 12 of all searches for the word. Occur is a verb meaning “To happen or take place”.
How many letters and syllables are in occur?
| Letters | 5: O-C-C-U-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 30 times per million words; the 3,161st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 3; the most searched, occurr, about 120 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell occur?
Occur is spelled O-C-C-U-R. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for occur 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 occur?
Occur appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,161st 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 occur?
- UK /əˈkɜː/
- US /əˈkɝ/
- /əˈkʌr/
Occur has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-occur.ogg, En-us-occur.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with occur?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as occur from its last stressed vowel (/ɜɹ/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of occur
- occurs present, singular, he/she/it
- occurring participle, present
- occurred participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does occur mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To happen or take place.
The liftoff will occur in exactly twelve seconds.
- 2
To present or offer itself.
I will write if the opportunity occurs.
- 3
To come or be presented to the mind; to suggest itself.
One little incident of my school days occurs to me as amusing.
- 4
To be present or found.
The chemical monofluoroacetate occurs in all parts of Dichapetalum cymosum, and is responsible for its toxic effects.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Occur in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | se produire, avoir lieu , arriver, se présenter, se passer |
| German | passieren, vorkommen, stattfinden , einfallen |
| Portuguese | ocorrer, acontecer , encontrar-se |
| Spanish | ocurrir , presentarse , ocurrírsele, tincar |
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 occur come from?
Originally "meet (in argument)", borrowed from Middle French occurrer, from Latin occurrō (“run to meet, run against, befall, present itself”) from prefix ob- (“against”) + verb currō (“run, hurry, move”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).