Other forms: occupants
An occupant is somebody living in or using a place. The occupants of the car, the current occupant, occupants of the building.
It is the neutral word covering owners, tenants and passengers alike, which is why it appears in insurance, fire regulations and accident reports — the occupants of the vehicle. Occupancy is the count or rate, as in occupancy levels in a hotel. Note occupier, which is the British legal term for whoever is in possession of premises and carries duties of its own.
1nounoccupantSomebody living in or using a place.
“The previous occupants of the flat left a pile of letters behind.”
occupant is a person in a place.
Latin occupans is the present participle of occupare, to seize or take up — ob plus capere, to take. Capture, occupy and recipe come from the same taking.
Latin
occupāns
Middle French
occupant
English, today
occupant
Borrowed from Middle French occupant (present participle of occuper) or Latin occupāns, occupantis (present participle of occupō). by surface analysis, occupy + -ant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA