Word.ws English Dictionary

owning up

owning up is the present participle and gerund of own up.

Meaning of own up

Verb

own up (third-person singular simple present owns up, present participle owning up, simple past and past participle owned up)

  1. (intransitive) To acknowledge, confess, or admit guilt or responsibility.
    • I'll own up: I glued your mouse to its mat.
    Synonyms:
    fess up, come clean

Questions about owning up

What is owning up the present participle and gerund of?
Owning up is the present participle and gerund of own up.

Words near owning up in the dictionary

  1. ownership equity
  2. ownerships
  3. ownest
  4. owneth
  5. owning
  6. owning up
  7. ownings
  8. ownness
  9. owns
  10. owns up
  11. ownself

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: owning up (page history and authors); own up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “owning up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/owning_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.