POSSESSED • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Possessed

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pəzˈɛst/ 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.

See images of 'Possessed'

Etymology of 'Possessed'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Possessed" Quotes from Famous Books

... which in the eleventh century must not be measured by the philosophy or the indifferentism of the nineteenth), the Norman duke applied all the energies of his mind and body, all the resources of his duchy, and all the influence he possessed among vassals or allies, to the collection of "the most remarkable and formidable armament which the Western nations had witnessed." [Sir James Mackintosh's History of England, vol. i. p. 97.] All the adventurous ...

— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... contrived to extract profit as well as pleasure from our little equipage. During the summer months we frequently drove up to London; the short journey was very pleasant, and this mode of making it possessed the great advantage of costing nothing but 63 cents for the pony, and 12 cents for turnpikes. Not that we had the temerity to drive through London. We always left the pony two miles before we reached town, with strict orders ...

— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton

... rolled to such an extent that it was almost impossible to go up and down the hatchways carrying anything; for a chap wanted more hands than he possessed to hold on ...

— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... he ever wrote, that one would be more sorry he should not have written? They are among the most delicious portraitures that genius ever painted of itself—buoyant, virtuous, happy genius—exulting in its own energies, yet possessed and mastered by a clear, calm, modest mind, and happy only in ...

— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... him. We may be almost fond of JOHN for being so worshipful of love. Much has come to him that we had almost despaired of his acquiring, including nearly all the divine attributes except that sense of humour. The beautiful SYBIL has always possessed but little of it also, and what she had has been struck from her by Cupid's flail. Naked of the saving grace, they face ...

— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie

Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org