Verb

(preferr)

*, II.3.2:

*:Tiberius preferred many to honours in his time, because they were famous whoremasters and sturdy drinkers.

(lb) To be in the habit of choosing something rather than something else; to favor; to like better.

:

*

*:"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects;."

(lb) To present or submit (something) to an authority (now usually in "to prefer charges").

*1630 , , True Travels , in Kupperman 1988, p.36:

*:one Master David Hume, who making some use of his purse, gave him Letters to his friends in Scotland to preferre him to King James.

*1817 , (Walter Scott), , XVII:

*:Such were the arguments which my will boldly preferred to my conscience, as coin which ought to be current, and which conscience, like a grumbling shopkeeper, was contented to accept.

Verb

(en-verb)

(label) To take or use time.

# To fill time.

#*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8 , passage=I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.}}

# To possess or use the time or capacity of; to engage the service of.

# To fill or hold (an official position or role).

# To hold the attention of.

(label) To take or use space.

# To fill space.

# To live or reside in.

#* (Washington Irving) (1783-1859)

The better apartments were already occupied .

#*

With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied ; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get

# (military) To have, or to have taken, possession or control of (a territory).

#* 1940 , in The China monthly review , volumes 94-95, page 370 [http://books.google.com/books?id=QqkTAAAAIAAJ&q=%22occupy+but+cannot+hold%22&dq=%22occupy+but+cannot+hold%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OB6HT4_zC4e68ASF1-jNCA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA]:

The Japanese can occupy but cannot hold, and what they can hold they cannot hold long, was the opinion of General Pai Chung-hsi, Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese Army,

#* 1975 , Esmé Cecil Wingfield-Stratford, King Charles and King Pym, 1637-1643 , page 330 [http://books.google.com/books?ei=ex2HT9-GK5D69gTJqNjdCA&id=VCwqAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22occupied+but+could+not+hold%22&q=%22occupied+but+could%22#search_anchor]:

Rupert, with his usual untamable energy, was scouring the country — but at first in the wrong direction, that of Aylesbury, another keypoint in the outer ring of Oxford defences, which he occupied but could not hold.

#* 1983 , Arthur Keppel-Jones, Rhodes and Rhodesia: The White Conquest of Zimbabwe, 1884-1902 , page 462:

One of the rebel marksmen, who had taken up position on a boulder, was knocked off it by the recoil of his weapon every time he fired. Again the attack achieved nothing. Positions were occupied , but could not be held.

#* 1991 , Werner Spies, John William Gabriel, Max Ernst collages: the invention of the surrealist universe , page 333:

Germany occupied France for three years while France struggled to make payments that were a condition of surrender.

#* 2006 , John Michael Francis, Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History , page 496:

Spain occupied , but could not populate, and its failure to expand Florida led Britain to consider the peninsula a logical extension of its colonial holdings.

# (surveying) To place the theodolite or total station at (a point).

(obsolete) To have sexual intercourse with.Sidney J. Baker, The Australian Language , second edition, 1966.

* 1590s , (William Shakespeare), , II.iv

God's light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word 'occupy ;' which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted

* 1867 , (Robert Nares) A Glossary

OCCUPY, [sensu obsc.] To possess, or enjoy.

*:: These villains will make the word captain, as odious as the word occupy''. ''2 Hen. IV , ii, 4.

*:: Groyne, come of age, his state sold out of hand

*:: For 's whore; Groyne still doth occupy'' his land. ''B. Jons. Epigr. , 117.

*:: Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words, as occupy'', nature, and the like. ''Ibid., Discoveries , vol. vii, p. 119.

It is so used also in Rowley's New Wonder, Anc. Dr., v, 278.

(obsolete) To do business in; to busy oneself with.

* Bible, (w) xxvii. 9

All the ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee to occupy the merchandise.

* 1551 , (in Latin), 1516

not able to occupy their old crafts

(obsolete) To use; to expend; to make use of.

* Bible, (w) xxxviii. 24

all the gold that was occupied for the work

* 1551 , (in Latin), 1516

They occupy not money themselves.