own

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To have something as your property; to legally possess it.

   They own three houses in Florida and one in Toronto.

2. 2
   adj

   Belonging to a particular person and nobody else.

   When we move into the new house, the kids will each have their own bedroom.

3. 3
   verb

   To admit or accept that something is true.

   I must own that I was completely wrong about him.

Common collocations

• own a bar Verb + noun
• own land Verb + noun
• own shares Verb + noun

From Middle English aȝen, 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”). 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…

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