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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

own.

Belonging to; possessed; acquired and designated by; 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.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/əʊn/Received-Pronunciation/aːn/Northumbria/aʊn/UK, sometimes/oʊn/General-American
  1. Belonging to; possessed; acquired and designated by; 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-comparable
  2. Not shared.

    not-comparable
    When we move into the new house, the kids will each have their own bedroom.
  3. Peculiar, domestic.

    not-comparable · obsolete
  4. Not foreign.

    not-comparable · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English oun, owen, 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”). Doublet of eigen-. Cognates Cognate with Scots ain, awin, awn, ayn (“own”), Saterland Frisian oain (“own”), West Frisian, Dutch, and German eigen (“own”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Swedish egen (“own”), Faroese egin (“own”), Icelandic eigin, eiginn (“own”), Norwegian Nynorsk eigen (“own”); also Ossetian исын (isyn, “to take”), Tocharian A and Tocharian B aik- (“to know, recognize”), Sanskrit ईश (īśa, “owning, possessing”). Originally past participle of the verb at hand in English owe.

verb/əʊn/Received-Pronunciation/aːn/Northumbria/aʊn/UK, sometimes/oʊn/General-American
  1. To have rightful possession of (property, goods or capital); to have legal title to; to acquire a property or asset.

    transitive
    I own this car.
  2. To have recognized political sovereignty over a place, territory, as distinct from the ordinary connotation of property ownership.

    transitive
    The United States owns Point Roberts by the terms of the Treaty of Oregon.
  3. To defeat or embarrass; to overwhelm.

    informal · transitive
    I will own my enemies.
    If he wins, he will own you.
  4. To virtually or figuratively enslave.

    transitive
  5. To defeat, dominate, or be above.

    Internet · slang
  6. To illicitly obtain administrative access to a computer system, thereby having full access to all the files thereon (including executables).

    slang · transitive
  7. To be very good.

    intransitive · slang
  8. To admit, concede, grant, allow; not to deny.

    intransitive
  9. To acknowledge.

    transitive
    I must own that I have been at fault all this time.
  10. To proudly acknowledge; to not be ashamed or embarrassed of.

    transitive
  11. To take responsibility for.

    transitive
  12. To recognise.

    transitive
    I own him as a son of my own.
  13. To claim as one's own.

    transitive
  14. To confess.

    UK · dialectal · intransitive
Where this word comes from

A back-formation from owner. Compare Old English āgnian, Dutch eigenen, German eignen, Swedish ägna.

noun/əʊn/Received-Pronunciation/aːn/Northumbria/aʊn/UK, sometimes/oʊn/General-American
  1. A crushing insult.

    Internet
Where this word comes from

A back-formation from owner. Compare Old English āgnian, Dutch eigenen, German eignen, Swedish ägna.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.