Own

How to spell own

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce own

What does own mean?

1. determinerBelonging to or done by a particular person, used for emphasis after a possessive.
2. verbTo have something as one's property, or to admit that something is true.

Own in a sentence

• determiner

  She finally bought her own flat after years of renting.

• verb

  They own a small holiday cottage on the coast.

• determiner

  The children each have their own bedroom upstairs.

• verb

  She was willing to own up to her part in the error.

Where does own come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English agen, meaning 'one's own' or 'possessed'. That form began life as the past participle of the old verb agan, meaning 'to have' or 'to possess', which is also the distant ancestor of the modern verbs 'owe' and 'ought'. Because it grew out of a verb of possession, 'own' carried the natural sense of something held as one's property, and by the medieval period it was used both as an emphasising word ('my own house') and as a verb meaning to possess. The verb later took on the everyday sense of admitting or acknowledging something, as in 'to own up' to a mistake, since to own a fact is to claim it as truly yours. The spelling is mercifully regular: the 'ow' simply spells the diphthong, and there is no silent trap to catch the writer.

How the word is built

• own (from Old English agen, 'possessed, one's own')