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Saxon genitive

Saxon genitive noun: a genitive construction in English formed with the possessive clitic -'s.

Noun

Saxon genitive (plural Saxon genitives)

  1. A genitive construction in English formed with the possessive clitic -'s.
    • It is against euphony to make two genitives of the same form follow each other, particularly when they are Saxon genitives.1871, A. J. Mertens, A Complete English Grammar, page 71
    • First, not all Saxon genitives can be paraphrased with have: many subjective and objective nominalizations (the boy's escape, the boy's release), genitives of origin (the boy's letter), genitives of measure (ten days' absence), and many genitives with non-human reference points (today's paper, next...1997, Ewa Dąbrowska, Cognitive Semantics and the Polish Dative, page 149

Forms of Saxon genitive

pluralSaxon genitives

Origin of Saxon genitive

So named because the possessive was one of the only productive relics of the Anglo-Saxon declensional system.

Questions about Saxon genitive

What does Saxon genitive mean?
Saxon genitive means a genitive construction in English formed with the possessive clitic -'s.
What part of speech is Saxon genitive?
Saxon genitive is a noun.
What is the plural of Saxon genitive?
The plural of Saxon genitive is Saxon genitives.

Words near Saxon genitive in the dictionary

  1. saxoguattine
  2. saxomaphone
  3. saxomaphones
  4. Saxon
  5. Saxon blue
  6. Saxon genitive
  7. Saxon genitives
  8. Saxon green
  9. Saxon Shore
  10. Saxon steed
  11. Saxondale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Saxon genitive (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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