own
EnglishEdit
PronunciationEdit
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈəʊn/
- (US) enPR: ōn, IPA(key): /ˈoʊn/
- (Hong Kong) IPA(key): /ˈuŋ/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -əʊn
Etymology 1Edit
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, German and Norwegian Nynorsk eigen (“own”), Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish egen (“own”), Icelandic eigin (“own”). Originally past participle of the verb at hand in English owe.
Alternative formsEdit
- 'n (informal contraction)
AdjectiveEdit
own
- Belonging to; possessed; proper to. Often marks a possessive determiner as reflexive, referring back to the subject of the clause or sentence.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Deuteronomy 24:16:
- The fathers shall not bee put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: euery man shall be put to death for his owne sinne.
- 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene i], page 14:
- Prospero: Fairely ſpoke ; / Sit then, and talke with her, ſhe is thine owne ;
- 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.
- Not shared
- When we move into the new house, the kids will each have their own bedroom.
- (obsolete) Peculiar, domestic.
- (obsolete) Not foreign.
Usage notesEdit
- Often used for implication of ownership, often with emphasis. In modern usage, it always follows a possessive determiner, or a noun in the possessive case.
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
belonging to (determiner)
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Etymology 2Edit
A back-formation from owner, owning and own (adjective). Compare Old English āgnian, Dutch eigenen, German eignen, Swedish ägna.
VerbEdit
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.
- (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.
- (intransitive) To admit, concede, grant, allow, acknowledge, confess; not to deny.
- 1895, Kenneth Graham, The Golden Age, London, page 6:
- For instance, when I flung the cat out of an upper window (though I did it from no ill-feeling, and it didn't hurt the cat), I was ready, after a moment's reflection, to own I was wrong, as a gentleman should.
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], OCLC 1042815524, part I:
- 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.
- (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 take responsibility for.
- (transitive) 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.
- (transitive) To recognise; acknowledge.
- to own one as a son
- (transitive) To claim as one's own.
- (intransitive, Britain dialectal) To confess.
SynonymsEdit
- (have rightful possession of): to possess
- (defeat): beat, defeat, overcome, overthrow, vanquish, have, take, best
AntonymsEdit
- (admit): disown
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
have rightful possession of
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defeat — see defeat
acknowledge responsibility for
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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ReferencesEdit
- 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
AnagramsEdit
PortugueseEdit
InterjectionEdit
own
- aw (used to express affection)
QuotationsEdit
For quotations using this term, see Citations:own.