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Possess   /pəzˈɛs/   Listen
verb
Possess  v. t.  (past & past part. possessed; pres. part. possessing)  
1.
To occupy in person; to hold or actually have in one's own keeping; to have and to hold. "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." "Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offense returning, to regain Love once possessed."
2.
To have the legal title to; to have a just right to; to be master of; to own; to have; as, to possess property, an estate, a book. "I am yours, and all that I possess."
3.
To obtain occupation or possession of; to accomplish; to gain; to seize. "How... to possess the purpose they desired."
4.
To enter into and influence; to control the will of; to fill; to affect; said especially of evil spirits, passions, etc. "Weakness possesseth me." "Those which were possessed with devils." "For ten inspired, ten thousand are possessed."
5.
To put in possession; to make the owner or holder of property, power, knowledge, etc.; to acquaint; to inform; followed by of or with before the thing possessed, and now commonly used reflexively. "I have possessed your grace of what I purpose." "Record a gift... of all he dies possessed Unto his son." "We possessed our selves of the kingdom of Naples." "To possess our minds with an habitual good intention."
Synonyms: To have; hold; occupy; control; own. Possess, Have. Have is the more general word. To possess denotes to have as a property. It usually implies more permanence or definiteness of control or ownership than is involved in having. A man does not possess his wife and children: they are (so to speak) part of himself. For the same reason, we have the faculties of reason, understanding, will, sound judgment, etc.: they are exercises of the mind, not possessions.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Possess" Quotes from Famous Books



... he whase arms shall fauld thy charms Possess a leal and true heart! To him be given to ken the heaven He grasps in Polly Stewart! O lovely Polly ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... 'Cousins? And clearly meant as a taunt at me! Now when did you see my cousins? I grant that I possess a monstrous and indefensible number. I have it. You think that at Lady Fauntleroy's ball I devoted myself too much to my family, and too ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... God would put into his heart that spirit which he put into the heart of Joseph of old—the spirit to see how divine and God-appointed is family life? God grant that that spirit may dwell in him, and possess him more and more day by day. That it may keep him true to his wife, true to his mother, true to his family, true, like Joseph, to all with whom he has to deal. That it may deliver him, as it delivered Joseph, from the snares of wicked women, from selfish politicians, if they ever try to sow ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... deed whereof I have not cunning, without good advice and information of counsel." Such a calling offered excellent opportunities for investments; and John Milton, a man of strict integrity and frugality, came to possess a "plentiful estate." Among his possessions was the house in Bread Street destroyed in the Great Fire. The tenement where the poet was born, being a shop, required a sign, for which he chose The Spread Eagle, either from the crest of such among the Miltons as had a right to bear ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... acquire so much sap amidst the surrounding siccity is inexplicable, unless it is that they possess the function of absorbing and condensing moisture by an unusual and unknown method. It is, however, a beneficent provision of nature as a protection against famine in a droughty land by furnishing ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk


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