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having

verb

Form of have , present participle of have.

Simple meaning

Have or have, either in a concrete or an abstract sense.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

having

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈhævɪŋ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. present participle of have

    Have or possess, either in a concrete or an abstract sense

  2. present participle of have

    To possess, own.

  3. present participle of have

    To hold, as something at someone's disposal.

  4. present participle of have

    Have as a feature

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Have or possess, either in a concrete or an abstract sense

Used this way, having is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

after havinghaving givenhaving thus

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • shaving-brush treenounRelated term

    Tree of Mexico to Guatemala having densely hairy flowers with long narrow petals clustered at ends of branches before leaves appear.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.