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The unlooked-for incidents of family history, and its hidden excitements, and its arduous occasions. I. Taylor.

Capable of being occasioned or caused. Barrow.

Of or pertaining to an occasion or to occasions; occuring at times, but not constant, regular, or systematic; made or happening as opportunity requires or admits; casual; incidental; as, occasional remarks, or efforts. The... occasional writing of the present times. Bagehot.

The system of occasional causes; -- a name given to certain theories of the Cartesian school of philosophers, as to the intervention of the First Cause, by which they account for the apparent reciprocal action of the soul and the body.

Quality or state of being occasional; occasional occurrence. [R.]

In an occasional manner; on occasion; at times, as convenience requires or opportunity offers; not regularly. Stewart. The one, Wolsey, directly his subject by birth; the other, his subject occasionally by his preferment. Fuller.

To occasion. [Obs.] The lowest may occasionate much ill. Dr. H. More.

One who, or that which, occasions, causes, or produces. Bp. Sanderson.

Once in a while; on rare occasions. [Colloq. U. S.]

A partial alienation of reason. "Occasional aberrations of intellect." Lingard. Whims, which at first are the aberrations of a single brain, pass with heat into epidemic form. I. Taylor.

formal application to any one; a petition; a formal statement on some subject or special occasion; as, an address of thanks, an address to the voters.

To make an adjective of; to form or change into an adjective. [R.] Language has as much occasion to adjective the distinct signification of the verb, and to adjective also the mood, as it has to adjective time. It has . . . adjectived all three. Tooke.

sche Again and again, more than once; often; repeatedly. -- Now and again, now and then; occasionally. -- To and again, to and fro. [Obs.] De Foe.

A pecuniary tribute paid by a vassal to his lord on special occasions. Blackstone.

riod, or regularly at stated intervals; invariably; uniformly; -- opposed to sometimes or occasionally. He always rides a black galloway. Bulwer.

sy of the subcutaneous cellular tissue; an effusion of serum into the cellular substance, occasioning a soft, pale, inelastic swelling of the skin.

ight to left. Hence: The lines of this part of the choral song. It was customary, on some occasions, to dance round the altars whilst they sang the sacred hymns, which consisted of three stanzas or parts; the first of which, called strophe, was sung in turning from east to west; the other, named antistrophe, in returni…

Depression occasioned by terror; dismay. [Obs.] Bacon.

ton. The sudden apparition of the Spaniards. Prescott. The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse occasioned much speculation in that portion of the world. Sir W. Scott.

he place or subject; -- a word used to introduce an incidental observation, suited to the occasion, though not strictly belonging to the narration.