# own

Pronunciation: say "OHN" US /oʊn/, UK /əʊn/

## Adjective

1. Used after a possessive to stress that something belongs to or is done by a particular person or thing and no one else.
   - Simple: Belonging to a particular person and nobody else.
   - _The chef grows her own vegetables behind the restaurant._
   - _They built the house with their own hands._

## Verb

2. To have something as one's rightful property, or to hold possession or control of something such as land or territory.
   - Simple: To have something that belongs to you, such as a house, money, or land.
   - _Few residents own the homes they live in._
   - _The company owns the patent on that process._
3. To take full responsibility for something, especially a mistake or one's actions.
   - Simple: To take responsibility for something you did, instead of blaming others.
   - _Managers who own their decisions earn more trust from their teams._
   - _She owned the failure publicly and apologized to the staff._
4. To acknowledge something about oneself proudly, without shame or embarrassment.
   - Simple: To accept something about yourself with pride and without feeling ashamed.
   - _He learned to own his accent instead of hiding it._
   - _Survivors who own their stories often help others heal._
5. To defeat, humiliate, or outdo someone completely, especially in a game, contest, or argument.
   - Simple: To beat someone easily or make them look foolish.
   - _Never get into a political debate with Priya, because she will own you in front of everyone._
   - _His sharp rebuttal completely owned the heckler._
6. To admit or acknowledge that something is true, valid, or one's fault (often 'own to' or 'own up').
   - Simple: To admit that something is true or that you did something.
   - _Critics must own that the early reviews were unfair._
   - _She freely owned the weakness of her case._
7. To dominate or control someone so completely as to figuratively enslave them.
   - Simple: To control someone so completely that they have no freedom, as if they were a slave.
   - _Fear can own us long after the danger has passed._
   - _Greed owned the old merchant to his final day._
8. To be extremely good or impressive. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To be really good or impressive.
   - _Their new album owns._
   - _Honestly, these noise-canceling headphones own._
10. To gain illicit superuser or root access to a computer system, thereby controlling all of its files. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To break into a computer system and take full control of it.
   - _The intruders owned the mail server and read every stored message._
   - _Once attackers own a host, they can reach every account on it._

## Noun

9. A crushing, humiliating insult, especially one that decisively wins an exchange.
   - Simple: A harsh, embarrassing insult that completely beats someone in an argument.
   - _His reply was the kind of own that ends a debate._
   - _The audience cheered at such a devastating own._

## Adjective

11. Peculiar or native to a person or place; belonging to one's own country rather than coming from abroad. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Belonging naturally to a person or place, or coming from one's own country.

## Other meanings

- (verb) To claim something or someone as belonging to oneself.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 11** — This comes from Middle English owen and Old English āgen ("own, proper"), originally the past participle of āgan, the verb behind English "owe." It traces back through Proto-Germanic *aiganaz to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to have, possess," and is related to Dutch and German eigen and Swedish egen.
**Meanings 2–10** — This is a back-formation from "owner," comparable to Old English āgnian, Dutch eigenen, and German eignen.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/own (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).