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Occur vs Befall - What's the difference?

occur | befall |

As verbs the difference between occur and befall

is that occur is to happen or take place while befall is to happen.

As a noun befall is

case; instance; circumstance; event; incident; accident.

occur

English

Verb

(occurr)
  • To happen or take place.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
    • , passage=And no use for anyone to tell Charles that this was because the Family was in mourning for Mr Granville Darracott […]: Charles might only have been second footman at Darracott Place for a couple of months when that disaster occurred , but no one could gammon him into thinking that my lord cared a spangle for his heir.}}
  • To present or offer (itself).
  • (label) To come or be presented to the mind; to suggest (itself).
  • * 1995 , (Theodore Kaczynski), Industrial Society and Its Future ,
    • Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, [...]
  • (label) To be present or found.

    • Synonyms

    * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l)

    Related terms

    * occurrent * occurrence

    befall

    English

    Verb

  • To happen.
  • To happen to.
    • Temptation befell me.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I beseech your grace that I may know / The worst that may befall me.
  • * {{quote-web, date=2013-04-15
    • , year= , first= , last= , author=Walter Russell Mead , authorlink= , title=The Wreck of the Euro , site=The American Interest citation , archiveorg= , accessdate=2013-04-16 , passage=As we’ve said before, with the exception of communism itself, the euro has been the biggest economic catastrophe to befall the continent (and the world) since the 1930s. }}

    Derived terms

    * befalling * misbefall

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Case; instance; circumstance; event; incident; accident.
  • * 1495 , William Caxton, Vitas Patrum :
    • Or he had tolde al his befall .
  • * 1990 , India. Parliament. House of the People, India. Parliament. Lok Sabha, Lok Sabha debates :
    • This is proposed to be done by moving necessary amendment in this befall to the Finance Bill.
  • * 1994 , Socialist Party (India), Janata: Volume 49 :
    • He said "I would advise people to cultivate frugal habits. I will not commit the crime of making them helpless by saying that they have no responsibility whatever in the befall of calamities like old age, illness, accident, etc. [...]"
  • * 1996 , Thomas Pfau, Rhonda Ray Kercsmar, Rhetorical and cultural dissolution in romanticism :
    • [...], the word "care" asserting itself subliminally in somewhat the same way that "fall" does in the "befall " of "Infant Joy."

    References

    * * English irregular verbs ----