Native Americans Say "Occupy" Terminology Is Offensive

[JackRiddler]

45. Dictionary definitions of occupy

The word's usages have been occupying my thoughts.

Question. If I "burn" a DVD, am I being disrespectful to victims of fire?

Oh, enough of my dry humor, here's a dictionary entry for "occupy" and notice especially the two variants of Number 3, because they cover both sides of this "debate."



occupy |ˈäkyəˌpī|
verb ( -pies, -pied) [ trans. ]

1 reside or have one's place of business in (a building) : the apartment she occupies in Manhattan.
• fill or take up (a space or time) : two long windows occupied almost the whole wall.
• be situated in or at (a place or position in a system or hierarchy) : on the corporate ladder, they occupy the lowest rungs.
• hold (a position or job).

2 (often be occupied with/in) fill or preoccupy (the mind or thoughts) : her mind was occupied with alarming questions.
• keep (someone) busy and active : Sarah occupied herself taking the coffee cups over to the sink | [as adj. ] ( occupied) tasks that kept her occupied for the remainder of the afternoon.

3 take control of (a place, esp. a country) by military conquest or settlement : Syria was occupied by France under a League of Nations mandate.
• enter, take control of, and stay in (a building) illegally and often forcibly, esp. as a form of protest : the workers occupied the factory.

DERIVATIVES
occupier |-ˌpīər| noun
ORIGIN Middle English : formed irregularly from Old French occuper, from Latin occupare ‘seize.’ A now obsolete vulgar sense [have sexual relations with] seems to have led to the general avoidance of the word in the 17th and most of the 18th cent.