possess

verb

puh-ZES/pəˈzɛs/

15 meanings of possess

1
verbtransitive
To have or own something, or to hold it as though you were its rightful owner.
Few families in the village possess more than a single acre of land.
The museum possesses one of the finest collections of medieval armor in the country.
Similarown, have, hold, boast
Oppositelack
Note
The core sense came into English with the word itself. Middle English possessen, from Old French possesser and ultimately Latin possessus, already meant "to have, own". The object need not be something saleable. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, childhood companions possess "a certain power over our minds". The passive possessed of still means simply "having": when Hobbes writes of men possessed of an opinion, they hold it.
2
verbtransitive
Of an evil spirit or similar being: to take control of someone's body or mind.
According to the legend, restless spirits possess travelers who sleep in the ruined chapel.
The priest claimed a demon had possessed the boy for months.
Note
Older English often built this sense with with. Dekker has a character "possessed with the devil," where a modern sentence reads possessed by evil spirits. The spirit need not be evil. Hobbes, describing Jewish belief, notes that anyone who behaved in an extraordinary way was thought possessed "either with a good, or evil spirit." The darker shade is usual, but it is not built into the word.
3
verbtransitive
Of an idea or thought: to dominate or strongly influence someone's mind.
A desire for revenge can possess a person completely, crowding out every other thought.
The thought of failure possessed him throughout the night.
Similarconsume, obsess, grip, dominate, haunt
Note
Here the feeling is the grammatical subject and the person is the object. "A horrid mistrust of the whole house possessed me," writes Joseph Conrad in The Arrow of Gold (1919). Fitzgerald's narrator in The Great Gatsby sees that "turbulent emotions possessed her." The pattern borrows the force of the demonic sense, since the emotion takes hold the way a spirit would. Suspicion, mistrust and strong emotion are its natural subjects.
4
verbliteraryreflexivetransitive
Of a person, to control or dominate oneself or another, or one's own or another's heart or mind.
He fought to possess his grief and speak calmly to the children.
A good leader possesses her fear and acts with a steady hand.
Similarmaster, control, contain, govern, restrain
Note
A literary sense, often used reflexively: one possesses oneself, one's mind or one's soul. It lives on in the phrase possess one's soul in patience, meaning to wait calmly. John Buchan's narrator tries to do exactly that in 1915 while fighting hunger. Addison and Steele describe uneasy people "who cannot possess their own minds." The tone is deliberately elevated, and in plain prose master or compose oneself is the safer choice.
5
verbtransitive
To have physical control or holding of property without owning it, such as a chattel or an interest in land.
A bailee may possess goods entrusted to him without holding any title to them.
The company possesses the warehouse under a long lease but does not own the building.
Similarhold, occupy
Note
Law keeps apart two ideas that everyday English blurs: having a thing and owning it. In legal use the verb means control alone, so someone can possess a chattel or an interest in land while title rests with another. That reverses the everyday owning sense, where possessing implies ownership. In legal writing, possess and own are not interchangeable.
6
verbliteraryreflexivetransitive
Of a person, to dominate someone sexually; to have sexual intercourse with them.
The poem describes how the conqueror sought to possess every woman he captured.
He wrote that desire alone made him want to possess her body and soul.
Similarhave, take
Note
A literary extension of the sense of mastering someone, in which domination becomes sexual. It runs from Shakespeare's As You Like It ("how long you would have her, after you have possessed her?") to the Circe episode of Joyce's Ulysses (1922). The verb frames the act as taking hold of a person. In ordinary prose it therefore sounds elevated or pointed, a writer's word rather than a neutral one.
7
verbintransitive
To dwell in a place or occupy it.
Doſt thou thinke in time / She will not quench, and let inſtructions enter / Where Folly now poſſeſſes?
1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”
Note
Here the verb takes no object, and an adverb or clause names the place instead. Cymbeline asks whether instruction can enter "Where Folly now possesses." Folly simply dwells there, and the line needs no object to say so. It is the objectless partner of the obsolete "inhabit" sense, and the personified subject shows how readily it turns figurative.

8
verbarchaictransitive
To get hold of something, whether by seizing it or by winning or gaining it.
The conquerors sought to possess the gold-rich provinces of the south.
Through cunning and force, he finally possessed the throne he had long coveted.
Note
Here the word means getting rather than having. The Tempest has the line "Remember / First to possess his books," meaning to seize them before the deed. Spenser's Faerie Queene has conspirators plotting "to possess the purpose they desired." Because the modern verb implies something already held, a reader may take these lines as ownership. In new writing, seize, gain or win states the act plainly.
9
verbarchaicreflexivetransitive
Chiefly with of or with, to vest ownership of something in oneself or another; to bestow or endow.
The deed served to possess the church of all the surrounding lands.
A peep at Wolf Larsen showed me that he had not moved. A bright thought struck me. I stole into his state-room and possessed myself of his revolvers.
1904, Jack London, The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library)
Similarendow
Oppositedispossess
Note
The person receiving the grant is the object, and the thing granted follows of or with. A line in Antony and Cleopatra runs "I will possess you of that ship and treasure." Used reflexively, to possess oneself of something is to take it for oneself. Its undoing is dispossess or unpossess, and its near synonym is seise.
10
verbarchaictransitive
To cause an idea or feeling to strongly affect or influence someone; to inspire or preoccupy them.
The general's words seemed to possess his soldiers with reckless courage.
What a ſtrange drowſines poſſeſſes them?
1610, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”
Note
The causative sense is archaic, but it survives in one everyday question: "What on earth possessed you to go walking by the quarry at midnight?" Asked that way, it suggests some impulse got hold of you and gently blames it. Elsewhere it belongs to older prose, as in Bacon's remark that "the first tale possesseth much." Unlike the sense where an idea dominates, the subject here is whatever puts the idea in place.
11
verbarchaictransitive
To occupy or take up someone's attention or time.
Affairs of state so possessed the king that he forgot his own birthday.
Trivial worries should not possess a busy mind for long.
Note
Time and attention are what is taken up here, often by pleasure rather than trouble. Izaak Walton writes of a pleasure that "possessed" Henry Wotton when he was past seventy. Defoe's Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) recalls a farm, garden and family that "before entirely possessed me." The usage is archaic. A modern writer would say occupied or absorbed, and possess in this sense reads as period style.
12
verbobsoletetransitive
To have knowledge of, or the ability to use, a language, skill, or similar.
Note
Knowledge of a language or skill is treated here as something held. Thackeray still writes in 1852 that Harry "possessed the two languages of French and English very well." In that sentence, very well grades the knowledge rather than any ownership. The usage is obsolete, and today the same sentence would say spoke or knew.
13
verbobsoletetransitive
Chiefly with that, to convince or persuade someone of something.
The counselor labored to possess the jury that his client spoke the truth.
Nothing could possess her that the danger had truly passed.
Note
Here the verb plants a belief in another mind. The use is obsolete and takes the shape possess + person + that-clause. John Arbuthnot, writing as Humphry Polesworth in 1712, shows it: he had possess'd the Lady, that he was the only Man in the World of a sound Constitution. Convince and persuade now do this work. It sits close to the "inform" meaning, which also fills a mind, but with knowledge rather than conviction.
14
verbobsoletetransitive
To make someone aware of something by supplying them with information or knowledge.
The lawyer rose to possess the court of the new evidence.
To[by Belch]. Poſſeſſe vs, poſſeſſe vs, tell vs ſomething of him. / Mar[ia]. Marrie ſir, ſometimes he is a kinde of Puritane.
c. 1601, William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”
Note
A sense worth knowing when reading Shakespeare, where it simply means "tell". Sir Toby's "Possess us, possess us, tell us something of him" in Twelfth Night explains itself. In Much Ado, the plea to "possess the people in Messina here, / How innocent she died" shows it taking a clause. It is obsolete, and it should not be mistaken for the demonic sense.
15
verbobsoletetransitive
To inhabit, dwell in, or hold occupancy of a place.
When those bells / Possessed the mid-day air, / Strove not her steps to reach my side / Down all the echoing stair?
1870, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “[Poems.] The Blessed Damozel.”
Wherefore getting out again, on that ſide next to his own Houſe; he [Pliable] told me, I ſhould poſſeſs the brave Countrey alone for him: ſo he went his way, and I came mine.
1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World
Note
Inhabiting was already part of Middle English possessen, "to inhabit, occupy". Milton's Paradise Lost has creatures "that possess Earth, Air." In Defoe's New Voyage Round the World, a nation possesses a vast extent of land with few men. Rossetti's "The Blessed Damozel" (1870) stretches the sense to sound, with bells that "possessed the mid-day air." It is obsolete, and inhabit or occupy now does the work.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of possess apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

This comes through Middle English possessen and Old French possesser from the Latin possessus, the past participle of possideō ("to have, hold, own; to take possession of; to occupy"). The Latin verb was built from potis ("able, capable"), from Proto-Indo-European *pótis ("master, ruler, husband"), plus sedeō ("to sit"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sed- ("to sit").