occupancy

plural occupancies

1. countableuncountableThe act of occupying, the state of being occupied or the state of being an occupant or tenant.
2. countableuncountableThe period of time during which someone rents or otherwise occupies certain land or premises.

   They had a five-year occupancy on the house.

3. countableuncountableThe specific use to which something occupied is put.

   This building is for residential occupancy.

4. countableuncountablelawA mode of acquiring title to a thing which belongs to nobody, by taking possession of it with an intent of acquiring such title.

   The federal government's occupancy of immigration law precludes state action.

   2 more examples

   But if the matter pre-existing belong to none, then shall the Right be acquired by a kind of Occupancy: But if it it belong to another, then that the Right of Propriety descends not naturally unto us alone, will appear by what follows.

   1682, Hugo Grotius, chapter III, in William Evats, transl., The Most Excellent Hugo Grotius His Three Books Treating of the Rights of War and Peace …, Book II, translation of original in Latin, page 88

   Occupancy is the taking possession of those things, which before belonged to nobody.

   1768, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, volume 2, page 258

5. countableuncountablemathematicsThe expected frequency of a state.