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occur to

phrasal verb

occurred to; occurring to; occurs to
: to be thought of by (someone)
An idea just occurred to me.
It suddenly occurred to her that there was a simpler way to deal with the problem.
Did it never occur to you to ask for help?

Examples of occur to in a Sentence

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Redistricting generally occurs to reflect population changes as measured by the national census conducted each decade, though this year's redistricting has been motivated by securing partisan advantage. John Kruzel, USA Today, 22 Nov. 2025 This is a bit of a digression, which just occurred to me. JSTOR Daily, 19 Nov. 2025 It's caused by damage that occurs to the developing brain, most often before birth. Gabrielle Rockson, PEOPLE, 17 Nov. 2025 But when a filmmaker puts his most dismal vision for our collective future onscreen, we’re somehow supposed to pretend these terrible premonitions could never have occurred to little old us, instead hailing them as a feat of imaginative brilliance. Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 12 Nov. 2025 See All Example Sentences for occur to

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Cite this Entry

“Occur to.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/occur%20to. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.

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