possessive

adjectivenounattested in dialogue

Canada//pəˈzɛs.ɪv//
Australia//pəˈzes.ɪv//
New Zealand//pəˈzes.əv//

Of or pertaining to ownership or possession.

adjective

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.

Etymology

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

noun

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.
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’).

Forms

plural: possessives
comparative: more possessive
superlative: most possessive

possess · To have (something) as, or as if as, an owner; to have, to…possessed · Controlled by evil spirits.possession · A control or occupancy of something for which one does not…

possessive · Of or pertaining to ownership or possession.

possibility · The quality of being possible.possible · Able but not certain to happen; neither inevitable nor…possibly · Perhaps; indicates that the proposition may be true (is not…

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.