No. 1,524 in German
besetzten
"Besetzten" means "to occupy" or "to staff."
In a sentence
Die Demonstranten besetzten das Rathaus.
The protesters occupied the town hall.
In this sentence, "besetzen" is used to mean 'to occupy'. It indicates taking control or possession of a space.
Wir müssen diese Position im Unternehmen besetzen.
We need to fill this position in the company.
Here, "besetzen" refers to 'filling a position'. It denotes assigning someone to a specific role or job.
Das Schiff besetzte seinen üblichen Ankerplatz.
The ship occupied its usual anchorage.
In this context, "besetzen" is used to mean 'occupy' in the sense of taking a designated space or location.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “besetzten” in actual German podcasts.
Find “besetzten” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays German podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into Deutsch, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
German books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).