something that occurs; a happening; event the act or an instance of occurring: a crime of frequent occurrence
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
oc•cur•rence /əˈkɜrəns, əˈkʌr-/USA pronunciation
n.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- [uncountable] a process or instance of occurring.
- something that occurs:[countable]unexpected occurrences.
oc•cur•rence
(ə kûr′əns, ə kur′-),USA pronunciation n.
oc•cur′rent, adj.
- the action, fact, or instance of occurring.
- something that happens;
event;
incident:We were delayed by several unexpected occurrences.
- 1530–40; occurr(ent) + -ence; compare Medieval Latin occurrentia
- 2.See corresponding entry in Unabridged circumstance. See event.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
'occurrence' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
El Niño
- NIMBY
- accelerate
- account
- act
- act of God
- advance
- affliction
- aftermath
- agammaglobulinemia
- ancestor
- ancient
- anticavity
- appulse
- background
- because
- biconditional
- bigeminy
- bitonality
- blues
- borrowed time
- burst
- bygone
- case
- casus belli
- chance
- chronograph
- chronological
- chronology
- circumstance
- coincidence
- collage
- collocation
- comic relief
- common
- complementation
- concomitance
- concurrence
- condition
- conditional
- conjunction
- consequence
- constancy
- constraint
- contingent
- contingent liability
- contretemps
- copycat
- cosmochemistry
- crowner