occasion
an event that occurs at a critical time
How often you will meet it
Rank 845 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 21,653 times across 155,139 chapters — 0.010% of every word in the library.
It belongs to the first 1,000 words, the band worth learning before any other.
What it means
noun
- an event that occurs at a critical time also: juncture at such junctures he always had an impulse to leaveit was needed only on special occasions
- a vaguely specified social event also: affair, social occasion, function, social function the party was quite an affairan occasion arranged to honor the president
- reason there was no occasion for complaint
- the time of a particular event on the occasion of his 60th birthday
- an opportunity to do something there was never an occasion for her to demonstrate her skill
verb
- give occasion to
occasion in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion.
The Picture of Dorian Gray · Oscar Wilde · Chapter 1
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So Jack, he takes occasion to have a sight of young Bewes.
The Torch and Other Tales · Eden Phillpotts · Chapter 1
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Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that the celebration of the exploit may be excused.
In the Wilderness · Charles Dudley Warner · Chapter 1
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General Grant was looking exactly as he had looked upon that trying occasion of ten years before--all iron and bronze self-possession.
Following the Equator — Part 1 · Mark Twain · Chapter 1
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The moment was far from propitious; and the occasion, which he had so often allowed to escape, did not offer itself again.
Other People's Money · Emile Gaboriau · Chapter 1