Possessive

How to spell possessive

10 letters · 3 syllables

9 of the 20 people asked to spell possessive in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is possesive. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

possesive possessive

What people typed instead

• possesive7 people

How to pronounce possessive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does possessive mean?

1. adjectiveDemanding total attention or loyalty and unwilling to share a person or thing with others.
2. adjectiveIn grammar, indicating ownership, as with an apostrophe and s or a word like 'my' or 'their'.

Possessive in a sentence

• His possessive behaviour made her feel watched and trapped.

• Add an apostrophe to form the possessive of a singular noun.

• The toddler was fiercely possessive about her favourite blanket.

• The word 'their' is a possessive form used before a noun.

Where does possessive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin verb possidere, meaning 'to own, hold, or occupy', which itself joined potis 'able, having power' with sedere 'to sit', giving the literal sense of sitting as master over something. The Latin adjective possessivus was used by grammarians to describe forms that express ownership, and that technical sense came into English through Old French in the late 1400s. The broader emotional meaning, describing a person who clings to and tries to control someone or something, developed much later. The doubled s on each side of the word is the classic spelling trap: there are two pairs, pos-SESS-ive, mirroring the same double-s pattern in 'possess' and 'possession'. The shared sedere root also surfaces in everyday words like 'session' and 'sedentary', which is a useful reminder of where the second pair of letters comes from.

How the word is built

• possess- (from Latin possidere: to own, occupy)
• -ive (adjective suffix forming 'tending to')