Word.ws English Dictionary

possessive

Syllables: pos·ses·sive/pəˈzɛs.ɪv/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/pəˈzes.ɪv/

possessive adjective: of or pertaining to ownership or possession.

Adjective

possessive (comparative more possessive, superlative most possessive)

  1. Of or pertaining to ownership or possession.
  2. Indicating ownership, possession, origin, etc.
  3. Unwilling to yield possession of.
    • He is very possessive of his car.

Noun

possessive (countable and uncountable, plural possessives)

  1. The possessive case.
  2. A word used to indicate the possessive case.
    • Take the rule about pronouns and possessives that Mr. Keegan cited in his challenge to the testing service.2023 January 6, Geoffery Nunberg, “The Nation: Parts of Speech; The Bloody Crossroads of Grammar and Politics”, in The New York Times
    • The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal all do the opposite, opting for ’s to mark a singular possessive and a simple apostrophe for plural possessive (Harrises’ and Walzes’).2024 October 8, Remy Tumin, “Is It Harris’ or Harris’s? Add a Walz, and It’s Even Trickier.”, in The New York Times

possessive meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

possessive in Hindi

स्वत्वबोधक

possessive in Urdu

قابض

possessive in Malayalam

അനുഭവിക്കുന്ന, അസൂയയുള്ള, ഉടമയെ സംബന്ധിച്ച

possessive in Kannada

ಪಡೆಯ ಬಯಸುವ, ಹೊಂದಬಯಸುವ, ಬಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಡದ, ಒಡೆತನದ, ಸ್ವಾಮ್ಯದ, ಸ್ವಾಮ್ಯ ಪ್ರವೃತ್ತಿಯ
More languagesFewer languages
possessive in Arabic
تَمَلُكِي tamaluki, صِيغَةُ اْلتَمَلُكِ ṣeyḡatu altamaluki
possessive in Indonesian
posesif

Examples of possessive in a sentence

  • "My", "its" and "his" are possessive adjectives.
  • The English possessive 's is an enclitic.
  • I had wanted an incalcitrant father, a possessive mother, a wild and violent argument.

All 18 example sentences with possessive

Forms of possessive

Adjective
comparativemore possessive
superlativemost possessive
Noun
pluralpossessives

Origin of possessive

From Middle French possessif, from Latin possessivus (“of or pertaining to possession”), from possessiō (“possessing”), from possidēre (“to possess”). By surface analysis, possess + -ive.

Words formed from possessive

Phrases with possessive

Words that rhyme with possessive

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about possessive

What does possessive mean?
Possessive means of or pertaining to ownership or possession.
What is possessive in Hindi?
Possessive in Hindi is स्वत्वबोधक. See Possessive meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is possessive?
Possessive can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce possessive?
Possessive is pronounced /pəˈzɛs.ɪv/ (UK).

Words near possessive in the dictionary

  1. possessionists
  2. possessionless
  3. possessionlessness
  4. possessions
  5. possessival
  6. possessive
  7. possessive adjective
  8. possessive adjectives
  9. possessive case
  10. possessive cases
  11. possessive determiner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: possessive (page history and authors); possessive (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); possessive (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); possessive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); possessive (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-possessive.wav.

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