Have

How to spell have

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce have

What does have mean?

1. verbTo possess, hold, or experience something.

Have in a sentence

• I have a meeting at noon.

• Do you have a moment to chat?

Where does have come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from the Old English verb habban, meaning 'to hold, possess, or own', which in turn came from a shared Germanic ancestor that also gave Dutch 'hebben' and German 'haben'. The deeper root carried the plain idea of holding something in your grasp, and from that physical sense the meaning broadened to cover possession of all kinds, including possessing experiences, duties, and relationships. Although it looks tantalisingly close to the Latin 'habere' (to have), the resemblance is a coincidence of sound rather than a true shared origin; the English word is purely Germanic. Over the centuries 'have' also took on its central grammatical job as an auxiliary verb, used to build perfect tenses such as 'I have finished'. The irregular present-tense form 'has' and the past form 'had' are survivals of the old conjugation, which is why the verb behaves so unusually for such a common word.

How the word is built

• have (single Old English root verb habban; no affixes)