occurs
/əˈkɝz/
"occurs" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“occurs” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #4,034 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #4,034
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - third-person singular simple present indicative of occur
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | occurs |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /əˈkɝz/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #4,034 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “occurs” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for occurs is 6 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈkɝz/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,034 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "third-person singular simple present indicative of occur".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for occurs, with forms such as "cocurs", "occrus", and "occurrs". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "ours", "occur", "occupy", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is occurs, spelled O-C-C-U-R-S.
Definition
- 1third-person singular simple present indicative of occur
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cocurs,occrus,occurrs,occurss,occusr,ocucrs,ocurs
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of occurs - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “occurs”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-C-C-U-R-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈkɝz/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ours” - see the side-by-side comparison. occurs vs ours
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.