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

Recent Examples on the Web Did that comparison occur to you all when writing that scene? —

J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 10 Aug. 2024 An answer that’s just occurred to me is that things are so scary in America at the moment — and uncertain. —

Brande Victorian, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Aug. 2024 In the wake of each of these failures -- and the Secret Service is often first to admit a failure -- multiple investigations occurred to understand and prevent further failures. —

Donald J. Mihalek, ABC News, 24 July 2024 And then the other thing that occurred to me watching the tapes was there’s something slightly different about this group. —

Carly Thomas, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for occur to

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'occur to.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.