To occupy means to fill or take up a space, time, or position. When students occupy the desks in a classroom, they're sitting in them. When a family occupies a house, they live there. A large bookshelf might occupy an entire wall in your bedroom.

The word also describes keeping yourself busy with an activity. You might occupy yourself with a puzzle while waiting for dinner, or occupy your time reading during a long car ride. Parents often need to find ways to occupy young children during rainy afternoons.

In a more serious sense, occupy can mean taking control of a place, often by force. When an army occupies a territory, it moves in and takes control. History books describe how countries have occupied other nations' lands during wars.

Your occupation is your job or profession: what occupies your working time. A teacher's occupation is teaching, and a chef's occupation is cooking. When someone asks about your parents' occupations, they're asking what work fills their days.

All these meanings share the idea of filling or claiming space, whether that space is physical, related to time, or political.