occasions
part of speech
noun, plural of occasion (an occasion, occasions); verb (occasion, formal)
meaning for a pupil
1) Times when something happens: «on three occasions» means three times. tree →
2) Special events or celebrations, like weddings or birthdays. tree →
3) (formal) Reasons or causes: «There is no occasion to worry.» tree →
4) (formal verb) To occasion something is to cause it. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths problems «on several occasions» counts how many times something happened. In everyday life, special occasions mean dressing up or a party. Phrases: on occasion (sometimes), special occasions, on two occasions, rise to the occasion.
examples
- Behold, He findeth occasions against me, He counteth me for His enemy; (Writings JOB.33.10, JPS 1917) tree →
- We only use the best plates on special occasions. tree →
- She has been late on three occasions this term. tree →
- Birthdays and weddings are happy occasions. tree →
- On occasion, we eat dinner in front of the TV. tree →
- He rose to the occasion and scored the winning goal. tree →
- On how many occasions did Tom visit the zoo? tree →
- The youngest was called Dummerly, and was on all occasions scorned and ill-treated by the whole family. tree →
note
Spelling trap: double c, single s: occasion, occasions. Countable. «On occasion» means sometimes, now and then. Maths: «on 4 occasions she saved $5» means 4 × 5 = 20 dollars.
In the corpora
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «occasions» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.