own
adjective · verb
Simple meaning
Belonging to; possessed.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ohnIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈoʊn
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
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.
Not shared.
verb
Have ownership or possession of
“He owns three houses in Florida.”
transitive
To have rightful possession of (property, goods or capital); to have legal title to; to acquire a property or asset.
transitive
To have recognized political sovereignty over a place, territory, as distinct from the ordinary connotation of property ownership.
transitive
To defeat or embarrass; to overwhelm.
intransitive
To admit, concede, grant, allow, acknowledge, confess; not to deny.
transitive
To proudly acknowledge; to not be ashamed or embarrassed of.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, own is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
Comfortable in writing and prepared speech; in casual conversation a shorter everyday word usually sounds more natural.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use own
- “He owns three houses in Florida.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: have ownership or possession of
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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.