Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Own
Own
(ōn)
, Verb.
T.
[OE.
unnen
to grant, permit, be pleased with, AS. unnan
to grant; akin to OS. giunnan
, G. gönnen
, Icel. unna
; of uncertain origin. This word has been confused with own
to possess.] To grant; to acknowledge; to admit to be true; to confess; to recognize in a particular character;
as, we
. own
that we have forfeited your loveThe wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide;
But his sagacious eye an inmate
But his sagacious eye an inmate
owns
. Keats.
Own
,Adj.
[OE.
owen
, awen
, auen
, aughen
, AS. āgen
, p. p. of āgan
to possess; akin to OS. ēgan
, G. & D. eigen
, Icel. eiginn
, Sw. & Dan. egen
. √110. See Owe
.] Belonging to; belonging exclusively or especially to; peculiar; – most frequently following a possessive pronoun, as my, our, thy, your, his, her, its, their, in order to emphasize or intensify the idea of property, peculiar interest, or exclusive ownership;
“No man was his own [i. e., no man was master of himself, or in possession of his senses].” as, my
own
father; my own
composition; my own
idea; at my own
price. Shak.
To hold one’s own
, to keep or maintain one's possessions; to yield nothing; esp., to suffer no loss or disadvantage in a contest.
Shak.
Own
,Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Owned
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Owning
.] To hold as property; to have a legal or rightful title to; to be the proprietor or possessor of; to possess;
as, to
. own
a houseWebster 1828 Edition
Own
OWN
,Adj.
1.
Belonging to; possessed; peculiar; usually expressing property with emphasis, or in express exclusion of others. It follows my, your, his, their, thy, her. God created man in his own image. Adam begat a son in his own likeness. Let them fall by their own counsel. He washed us from our sins in his own blood. In the phrases, his own nations, his own country, the word own denotes that the person belongs to the nation or country.
2.
Own often follows a verb; as, the book is not my own, that is, my own book.3.
It is used as a substitute.That they may dwell in a place of their own. 2Sam. 7.
In this use, a noun cannot follow own.
4.
'He came to his own, and his own received him not,' that is, his own nation or people; own being here used as a substitute, like many other adjectives.OWN
,Verb.
T.
1.
To have the legal or rightful title to; to have the exclusive right of possession and use. A free holder in the United states owns his farm. Men often own land or goods which are not in their possession.2.
To have the legal right to, without the exclusive right to use; as, a man owns the land in front of his farm to the middle of the highway.3.
To acknowledge to belong to; to avow or admit that the property belongs to.When you come, find me out and own me for your son.
4.
To avow; to confess, as a fault, crime or other act; that is, to acknowledge that one has done the act; as, to own the faults of youth; to own our guilt. The man is charged with theft, but he has not owned it.5.
In general, to acknowledge; to confess; to avow; to admit to be true; not to deny; as, to own our weakness and frailty.Many own the gospel of salvation more from custom than conviction.
Definition 2024
own
own
English
Verb
own (third-person singular simple present owns, present participle owning, simple past and past participle owned)
- (transitive) To have rightful possession of (property, goods or capital); to have legal title to.
- I own this car.
- (transitive) To have recognized political sovereignty over a place, territory, as distinct from the ordinary connotation of property ownership.
- The United States owns Point Roberts by the terms of the Treaty of Oregon.
- (intransitive) To admit, concede, grant, allow, acknowledge, confess; not to deny.
- 1902, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Tank Books 2007, page 25:
- I am sorry to own I began to worry then.
- 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 5
- They learned how perfectly peaceful the home could be. And they almost regretted—though none of them would have owned to such callousness—that their father was soon coming back.
- 1902, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Tank Books 2007, page 25:
- (transitive) To claim as one's own; to answer to.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
- I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
- (intransitive) To acknowledge or admit the possession or ownership of. (Ref 3)
- (transitive) To defeat or embarrass; to overwhelm.
- I will own my enemies.
- If he wins, he will own you.
- (transitive) To virtually or figuratively enslave.
- (online gaming, slang) To defeat, dominate, or be above, also spelled pwn.
- (transitive, computing, slang) To illicitly obtain superuser or root access to a computer system, thereby having access to all of the user files on that system; pwn.
- 1996 June 21, The Happiest Dragon Alive!!, “Re: An unusual situation”, in , Usenet, retrieved 2016-09-24, message-ID <4qe8pc$8ti@nerd.apk.net>:
- "TH15 5Y5T3M 15 0WN3D"
-
Synonyms
- (have rightful possession of): to possess
- (acknowledge responsibility for): be responsible for, admit or take responsibility for
- (admit): confess, acknowledge, allow
- (defeat): beat, defeat, overcome, overthrow, vanquish, have, take, best
Derived terms
Translations
have rightful possession of
|
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defeat — see defeat
Etymology 2
From Middle English owen, aȝen, from Old English āgen (“own, proper, peculiar”), from Proto-Germanic *aiganaz (“own”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyḱ- (“to have, possess”). Cognate with Scots ain (“own”), Saterland Frisian oain (“own”), Dutch eigen (“own”), German eigen (“own”), Swedish egen (“own”), Icelandic eigin (“own”).
Alternative forms
- 'n (informal contraction)
Adjective
own
- Belonging to; possessed; proper to. Often marks a possessive determiner as reflexive, referring back to the subject of the clause or sentence.
- Surprisingly, I realised my own brother had the same idea as me. You need to find your own seat - this one is mine. He gave her a pen, because he already had his own. The restored Maxwell is Bob's own car. They went this way, but we need to find our own way. We have made some arrangements, but you will need to make your own. They were all prepared for the picnic, because they had all brought their own food and plates.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:
- I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 10, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.
- 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27:
- The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you […] "share the things you love with the world" and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.
- (obsolete) Peculiar, domestic.
- (obsolete) Not foreign.
Usage notes
- implying ownership, often with emphasis. In modern usage, it always follows a possessive pronoun, or a noun in the possessive case.
Derived terms
Translations
belonging to (determiner)
|
|
Etymology 3
From Middle English unnen (“to favour, grant”), from Old English unnan (“to grant, allow, recognise, confess”), from Proto-Germanic *unnaną (“to grant, thank”), from Proto-Indo-European *ān- (“to notice”). Akin to German gönnen (from Old High German gi- + unnan), Old Norse unna (Danish unde)[1]. In Gothic only the substantive 𐌰𐌽𐍃𐍄𐍃 (ansts) is attested.[2]
Verb
own (third-person singular simple present owns, present participle owning, simple past and past participle owned)
- (transitive, obsolete) To grant; give.
- (transitive) To admit; concede; acknowledge.
- 1611, Shakespeare, The Tempest, v.:
- Two of those fellows you must know and own.
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. 1, Jocelin of Brakelond
- It must be owned, the good Jocelin, spite of his beautiful childlike character, is but an altogether imperfect 'mirror' of these old-world things!
- 1611, Shakespeare, The Tempest, v.:
- (transitive) To recognise; acknowledge.
- to own one as a son
- (intransitive, Britain dialectal) To confess.
Translations
acknowledge responsibility for
Statistics
References
- 1896, Universal Dictionary of the English Language [UDEL], v3 p3429:
- To possess by right; to have the right of property in; to have the legal right or rightful title to.
- 1896, ibid., UDEL
- 1896, ibid., UDEL
- 1896, ibid., UDEL
- Notes:
- ↑ own in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- ↑ Etymology of the German cognate in Deutsches Wörterbuch
Anagrams
Portuguese
Interjection
own
- aw (used to express affection)
Quotations
For usage examples of this term, see Citations:own.