Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to ownership or possession.
- adj. Having or manifesting a desire to control or dominate another, especially in order to limit that person's relationships with others: a possessive parent.
- adj. Grammar Of, relating to, or being a noun or pronoun case that indicates possession.
- n. Grammar The possessive case.
- n. Grammar A possessive form or construction.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to or denoting possession; expressing possession: as in a lady's dress, their house, a mere notion of John's.
- n. A pronoun or other word denoting possession.
- n. The possessive case.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to ownership or possession.
- adj. grammar Indicating ownership, possession, origin, etc.
- adj. Unwilling to yield possession of.
- n. grammar The possessive case.
- n. grammar A word used to indicate the possessive case.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to possession; having or indicating possession.
- n. (Gram.) The possessive case.
- n. (Gram.) A possessive pronoun, or a word in the possessive case.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the case expressing ownership
- adj. having or showing a desire to control or dominate
- adj. serving to express or indicate possession
- adj. desirous of owning
Etymologies
- Latin possessivus, of or pertaining to possession, from possessio, possessing, possidere, to possess. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“To make the word possessive, you add an apostrophe and an "s" (rope's).”
The Huffington Post: Arianna Huffington: Arianna's Grammar Pet Peeve: The Apostrophe Crisis
“Even if the “ugly spirits,” as he called the possessive forces, could not be exorcised, they could be kept under control, he discovered, through the process of writing about them.”
“In his book, Halpern deals with one such case of Barzun's being criticized by Pinker, in which Pinker says that Barzun "earned an 'F'" because he called the possessive use of a noun an adjective.”
“If you used the shortened form, you'd just say "in-laws' house", but since you're using the full form, it's correct to pluralise the noun and not the modifier ('parents' rather than 'in law'), and then make the entire term possessive, because it's acting as a noun cluster. ("parents-in-law's")”
The Skinny Kitten Story (In Which I Am Both A Liar And A Kitten Thief)
“This is a good point at which to explain possessive plurals, as we have already added an “s”, we can now simply add an apostrophe; “the scrotes’ lawyer” (the lawyer for several scrotes).”
“For Kilpatrick, the friend of … part of the phrase establishes possession, and thus the ‘s possessive is redundant.”
“Oh, wait…what’s that marginalization term possessive individualists use…statist?”
“As the possessive is the only case of nouns that has a distinctive inflection, it is only with this case that mistakes can occur in construction.”
Higher Lessons in English A work on english grammar and composition
“[Footnote: Sometimes these words are called possessive pronouns, although really they are not pronouns at all, but pronominal adjectives with a possessive meaning.] 44.”
“_ «Suus» is a _reflexive_ possessive, that is, it usually stands in the predicate and regularly refers back to the _subject_.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘possessive’.
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Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
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Dominant/Submissive
abusive, adamant, autocratic, bossy, bullheaded, bumptious, certain, cock-a-hoop, cocksure, cocky, commanding, compelling and 189 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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EN - eesily missspellable wirds
accessible, accommodate, achievement, acquaintance, address, advertisement, alleged, athletics, attendance, auxiliary, believe, challenge and 118 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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classic695's Words
delighted, elated, energetic, excited, enthusiastic, elevated, happy, contented, fine, pleased, satisfied, compassionate and 168 more...
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born2badored's Words
livid, fnordy, grok, bloopy, bokonon, disinformation, psychometrics, trip hop, acid jazz, bauble, dynamic, constant and 91 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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2007bee-r02
2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee Round 2
query, tendency, danceable, parachute, malignant, brutal, humanely, lyrically, deductible, shindig, gravel, embroidered and 274 more...
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Hit list
vomitorium, fainthearted, bigotry, clusterfuck, time, crepuscular, upchuck, unbosomed, buffoon, omnibus, zealot, crime and 21 more...
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Whatever the Case May Be...
Various grammatical cases.
ablative, accusative, vocative, dative, nominative, genitive, locative, abessive, absolutive, multiplicative, addirective, caritive and 49 more...
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8th--Unit 1 Vocab (Part 1)
predictions, outcome, nonfiction, main idea, supporting detail, fiction, exposition, climax, rising action, falling action, resolution, internal conflict and 8 more...
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Words to describe myself.
relentless, happy-go-lucky, quixotic, inarticulate, simple, misunderstood, eccentric, passionate, patient, zealous, empathetic, possessive and 20 more...
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Kittie
Taurus, Jupiter, luxury, cat, feline, material, earth, sand, turquoise, independence, stability, indulgence and 66 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for possessive.
bilby Or not. Nov 19, 2009
born2badored to want all to ones self. selfish and greedy Dec 6, 2006