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possessive

Syllabification: (pos·ses·sive)
Pronunciation: /pəˈzesiv/
Translate possessive | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of possessive

adjective

  • 1demanding someone’s total attention and love:as soon as she’d been out with a guy a few times, he’d get possessive she was possessive of our eldest son
  • showing a desire to own things and an unwillingness to share what one already owns:young children are proud and possessive of their own property
  • 2 Grammar relating to or denoting the case of nouns and pronouns expressing possession.
    [from Latin possessivus, translation of Greek ktētikē (ptōsis) 'possessive (case)']

noun

Grammar
  • a possessive word or form.
  • (the possessive) the possessive case.

Derivatives

possessively

adverb

possessiveness

noun

1 Form the possessive of singulars by adding ‘s: Ross’s, Fox’s, Reese’s. A few classical and foreign names are traditional exceptions to this rule, for example, Jesus’ and Euripides,' which take an apostrophe only. 2 Form the possessive of plurals by adding an apostrophe to the plural form: the Rosses‘ house, the Perezes’ car. See also apostrophe1 (usage), its, and plural.

possessive in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of possessive in the British & World English dictionary

Nearby words

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