non-occurring meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

non-occurring

adj

Etymology From non- + occurring.

That does not occur.

The account, which that very ancient Father really gives of the matter, differs toto cœlo from that, which, through the medium of a non-occurring citation, is gravely ascribed to him by Dr. Wiseman.1840, George Stanley Faber, “Introduction”, in Christ’s Discourse at Capernaum, Fatal to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation; on the Very Principle of Exposition, Adopted by the Divines of the Roman Church, and Suicidally Maintained by Dr. Wiseman: Associated with Remarks on Dr. Wiseman’s Lectures on the Principal Doctrines and Practices of the (Roman) Catholic Church, London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, page lxii:
Mrs. Eversley said she talked with Elaine Rehman about patients who complained they were billed for non-occurring hospital visits from the doctor.1962 November 6, “Rehman Defense Makes Trial Point”, in Independent, volume 25, number 60, Long Beach, Calif., page B-7:

1 more example

But after surviving Y2K and all its non-occurring tragedies, we now use that expression to mean something that occurred just seven years ago.2007 February 21, Don Ginnings, “It seems like only a century ago”, in The Index, Hermitage, Mo., page 2A:

noun

Etymology From non- + occurring.

The instance of something not occurring.

The non-occurring of cholera in New York in the autumn of 1892 was not due in any important degree to the quarantine; but infinitely more to the fact that the other conditions did not prevail.1900, The Annual of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery, page 311:
[…]there being no provision in the contract for the return of the money, the subsequent non-occurring of the event, or the event happening which makes the contract impossible of performance on both sides, does not entitle the plaintiff to recover his money[…]1903, The Law Times Reports of Cases Decided in the House of Lords, the Privy Council, the Court of Appeal, page 201:

3 more examples

So the absence of anophelines is doubtless the reason of the nonoccurring of malaria in Nemi.1933, Rivista di malariologia, page 314:
However, investigations by electron microscope proved that the non-occurring of crystallization was illusory.1970, NHQ; the New Hungarian Quarterly, page 161:
The perceived and known fact on which this discussion is based, is not the difference between the occurring and the non-occurring of an act (for non-occurring does not say impossibility), nor the difference between possibility and impossibility of the act (for the possibility cannot be perceived), but the difference between the occurring and the impossibility.1976, J. R. T. M. Peters, God’s Created Speech: A Study in the Speculative Theology of the Muʿtazilî Qâḍîl-Quḍât Abû L-Ḥasan ʿAbd Al-Jabbâr Bn Aḥmad Al-Hamaḏânî, Leiden: E. J. Brill, →ISBN, page 197: