Wiktionary

own

EnglishEdit

PronunciationEdit

Etymology 1Edit

From Middle English owen, aȝen, from Old English āgen (“own, proper, peculiar”), originally the past participle of āgan; from Proto-West Germanic *aigan (“own”), from Proto-Germanic *aiganaz (“own”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyḱ- (“to have, possess”).

Cognates
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

  2. Belonging to; possessed; acquired; proper to; property of; titled to; held in one's name; under/using the name of. 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 […] (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 ;
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:
      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[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:
      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.
  3. Not shared.
    When we move into the new house, the kids will each have their own bedroom.
  4. (obsolete) Peculiar, domestic.
  5. (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

Etymology 2Edit

 
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

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)

  1. (transitive) To have rightful possession of (property, goods or capital); to have legal title to; to acquire a property or asset.
    I own this car.
  2. (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.
  3. (transitive) To defeat or embarrass; to overwhelm.
    I will own my enemies.
    If he wins, he will own you.
  4. (transitive) To virtually or figuratively enslave.
  5. (online gaming, slang) To defeat, dominate, or be above, also spelled pwn.
  6. (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[1], retrieved 2016-09-24, message-ID <4qe8pc$8ti@nerd.apk.net>:
      "TH15 5Y5T3M 15 0WN3D"
  7. (intransitive, slang) To be very good.
  8. (intransitive) To admit, concede, grant, allow, acknowledge, confess; not to deny.
  9. (transitive) To admit; concede; acknowledge.
    • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:
      Two of those fellows you must know and own.
    • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “1, ’’Jocelin of Brakelond’’”, in Past and Present, New York, N.Y.: William H. Colyer, […], published May 1843, OCLC 10193956, book:
      It must be owned, the good Jocelin, spite of his beautiful childlike character, is but an altogether imperfect 'mirror' of these old-world things!
  10. (transitive) To proudly acknowledge; to not be ashamed or embarrassed of.
    • 2014 April 17, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Thursday, Apr 17, 2014:
      "Well, I'm not hiding anymore! I'm owning my girly looks with cute short pink hair!"
  11. (transitive) To take responsibility for.
  12. (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.
  13. (transitive) To recognise; acknowledge.
    to own one as a son
  14. (transitive) To claim as one's own.
  15. (intransitive, UK dialectal) To confess.
SynonymsEdit
AntonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
defeat — see defeat
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

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

  1. aw (used to express affection)

QuotationsEdit

For quotations using this term, see Citations:own.

YolaEdit

NumeralEdit

own

  1. Alternative form of oan
    • 1927, “ZONG O DHREE YOLA MYTHENS”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, line 3:
      Vo no own caars.
      Whom no one cares.

ReferencesEdit

  • Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 131
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