Word.ws English Dictionary

rises to the occasion

rises to the occasion is the third-person singular simple present indicative of rise to the occasion.

Meaning of rise to the occasion

Verb

rise to the occasion (third-person singular simple present rises to the occasion, present participle rising to the occasion, simple past rose to the occasion, past participle risen to the occasion)

  1. (idiomatic) To show resolve or effectiveness in dealing with a difficulty.
    • Gabriel, though one of the quietest and most gentle men on earth, rose to the occasion, with martial promptness and vigour. "That's my fist. . . . Now — the first man in the parish that I hear prophesying bad of our mistress, why" (here the fist was raised and let fall as Thor might have done with...1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter 15, in Far from the Madding Crowd
  2. (euphemistic, humorous, idiomatic) To achieve an erection of the penis.
    • To his comic fury and shame, the traveller's 'master part' fails to rise to the occasion, and the girl's innocence is preserved.2001, John R. Williams, The Life of Goethe: A Critical Biography

Questions about rises to the occasion

What is rises to the occasion the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Rises to the occasion is the third-person singular simple present indicative of rise to the occasion.

Words near rises to the occasion in the dictionary

  1. rises from the ashes
  2. rises from the dead
  3. rises through the ranks
  4. rises to the bait
  5. rises to the challenge
  6. rises to the occasion
  7. rises to the purple
  8. rises up
  9. rises with the lark
  10. rises with the sun
  11. risest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rises to the occasion (page history and authors); rise to the occasion (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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