possessed
adjective · verb
Form of possess , past tense of possess.
Simple meaning
Controlled by evil spirits.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
puhzehstSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pəˈzɛst
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
not comparableconstrued with of
Having; owning.
“The president was possessed of great wealth.”
Controlled by evil spirits.
“He was exorcised because he was thought to be possessed by the Devil.”
Seized by powerful emotions.
verb
past tense of possess
Of an idea, thought, etc.: to dominate (someone's mind); to strongly influence.
To have; to have ownership of.
“He does not even possess a working telephone.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Owningadjective
“The president was possessed of great wealth.”
Controlledadjective
“He was exorcised because he was thought to be possessed by the Devil.”
Ownershipverb
“He does not even possess a working telephone.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Have as an attribute, knowledge, or skill.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Serving to express or indicate possession.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.