The film occupied three hours of my time.

The historic mansion occupied two city blocks.

The Japanese can occupy but cannot hold, and what they can hold they cannot hold long, was the opinion of General Pai Chung-hsi, Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese Army, […]

Rupert, with his usual untamable energy, was scouring the country — but at first in the wrong direction, that of Aylesbury, another keypoint in the outer ring of Oxford defences, which he occupied but could not hold.

One of the rebel marksmen, who had taken up position on a boulder, was knocked off it by the recoil of his weapon every time he fired. Again the attack achieved nothing. Positions were occupied, but could not be held.

Germany occupied France for three years while France struggled to make payments that were a condition of surrender.

Spain occupied, but could not populate, and its failure to expand Florida led Britain to consider the peninsula a logical extension of its colonial holdings.

1867, Robert Nares A Glossary
OCCUPY, [sensu obsc.] To possess, or enjoy.
These villains will make the word captain, as odious as the word occupy. 2 Hen. IV, ii, 4.
Groyne, come of age, his state sold out of hand
For 's whore; Groyne still doth occupy his land. B. Jons. Epigr., 117.
Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words, as occupy, nature, and the like. Ibid., Discoveries, vol. vii, p. 119.
It is so used also in Rowley's New Wonder, Anc. Dr., v, 278.

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