occupation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An activity that serves as one's regular source of livelihood; a vocation.
• noun An activity engaged in especially as a means of passing time; an avocation.
• noun The act or process of holding or possessing a place.
• noun The state of being held or possessed.
• noun Invasion, conquest, and control of a nation or territory by foreign armed forces.
• noun The military government exercising control over an occupied nation or territory.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of occupying or taking possession; a holding or keeping; possession; tenure.
• noun The state of being occupied or employed in any way; employment; use: as, occupation with important affairs.
• noun That to which one's time and attention are habitually devoted; habitual or stated employment; vocation; calling; trade; business.
• noun Use; benefit; profit.
• noun Consumption; waste.
• noun Synonyms Occupation, Calling, Vocation, Employment, Pursuit, Business, Trade, Craft, Profession, Office. In regard to what a person does as a regular work or a means of earning a livelihood, occupation is that which occupies or takes up his time, strength, and thought; calling and vocation are high words, indicating that one is called by Providence to a particular line of work; calling is Anglo-Saxon and familiar, and vocation is Latin and lofty (the words are not always used in the higher sense of divine appointment or the call of duty, but it is much better to save them for the expression of that idea); employment is essentially the same as occupation; pursuit is the line of work which one pursues or follows; business suggests something of the management of buying and selling; trade and profession stand over against each other for the less and more intellectual pursuits, as the trade of a carpenter, the profession of an architect; trade is different from a trade, the latter being skill in some handicraft: as, being obliged to learn a trade, he chose that of a blacksmith; the “learned professions” used to be law, medicine, and the ministry, but the number is now increased; craft is an old word for a trade; office suggests the idea of duties to be performed for others. See avocation, 5.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act or process of occupying or taking possession; actual possession and control; the state of being occupied; a holding or keeping; tenure; use.
• noun That which occupies or engages the time and attention.
• noun The principal business of one's life; the principal work by which one earns one's livelihood; vocation; employment; profession; calling; trade; avocation.
• noun (Engin.) a bridge connecting the parts of an estate separated by a railroad, a canal, or an ordinary road.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An activity or task with which one occupies oneself; usually specifically the productive activity, service, trade, or craft for which one is regularly paid; a job.
• noun The act, process or state of possessing a place.
• noun The control of a country or region by a hostile army.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the act of occupying or taking possession of a building
• noun the control of a country by military forces of a foreign power
• noun the period of time during which a place or position or nation is occupied
• noun the principal activity in your life that you do to earn money
• noun any activity that occupies a person's attention