From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishoccur to somebody phrasal verb formalTHINK something/HAVE A THOUGHTif an idea or a thought occurs to you, it suddenly comes into your mindit occurs to somebody to do something I suppose it didn’t occur to you to phone the police? It never seems to occur to my children to contact me.it occurs to somebody (that) It had never occurred to him that he might be falling in love with her. → occur→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
it occurs to somebody (that)• As I try and fail to cross the street, it occurs to me that even the chaos is ruled by convention.• He's like a policeman taking evidence, and it occurs to me that it's just what he might be.• I am being set up in the ward and it occurs to me that I am feeling fine.• I haven't walked along here for years - not, it occurs to me, for fourteen years.• It is then that it occurs to me that I might end up not liking Victorine.• It was never our intention to hurt anyone and it occurs to us in retrospect that the ad was insensitive.• Then it occurs to us that we could raise the sails to increase our visibility.• We respond more with glances, it occurs to me, than we do with words. 