POSSESSED • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Possessed

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/pəzˈɛst/ Listen

verb

Possess v. t. (past & past part. possessed; pres. part. possessing)

1.

To occupy in person; to hold or actually have in one's own keeping; to have and to hold. "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." "Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offense returning, to regain Love once possessed."

2.

To have the legal title to; to have a just right to; to be master of; to own; to have; as, to possess property, an estate, a book. "I am yours, and all that I possess."

3.

To obtain occupation or possession of; to accomplish; to gain; to seize. "How... to possess the purpose they desired."

4.

To enter into and influence; to control the will of; to fill; to affect; said especially of evil spirits, passions, etc. "Weakness possesseth me." "Those which were possessed with devils." "For ten inspired, ten thousand are possessed."

5.

To put in possession; to make the owner or holder of property, power, knowledge, etc.; to acquaint; to inform; followed by of or with before the thing possessed, and now commonly used reflexively. "I have possessed your grace of what I purpose." "Record a gift... of all he dies possessed Unto his son." "We possessed our selves of the kingdom of Naples." "To possess our minds with an habitual good intention."

Synonyms: To have; hold; occupy; control; own. Possess, Have. Have is the more general word. To possess denotes to have as a property. It usually implies more permanence or definiteness of control or ownership than is involved in having. A man does not possess his wife and children: they are (so to speak) part of himself. For the same reason, we have the faculties of reason, understanding, will, sound judgment, etc.: they are exercises of the mind, not possessions.

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Etymology of 'Possessed'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Possessed" Quotes from Famous Books

... good fortune with something of the same cheerful philosophy with which he had seen difficulty loom up in his path a few months ago. But to-night, on his way home from Mr. Bullsom's suburban residence, a different mood possessed him. Usually a self-contained and somewhat gravely minded person, to-night the blood went tingling through his veins with a new and unaccustomed warmth. He carried himself blithely, the cool night air was so grateful and sweet to him that he had no mind even to smoke. There ...

— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the sake of an ideal, for those experiments which must be undertaken with vigor and boldness in order to secure didactic value in failure as well as in success, society must depend upon the individual possessed with money, and also distinguished by earnest and unselfish purpose. Such experiments enable the nation to use the Referendum method in its public affairs. Each social experiment is thus tested by a few people, given wide publicity, that it may be observed and discussed by the bulk of the citizens ...

— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... Parliament for Cambridgeshire; died in 1787. His principal works were "A Free Enquiry into the Origin of Evil," and "A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion." Boswell writes of him: "Jenyns was possessed of lively talents, and a style eminently pure and 'easy', and could very happily play with a light subject, either in prose or verse; but when he speculated on that most difficult and excruciating question, 'The Origin ...

— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... the government. These tribes—indeed, it may be said this tribe (the Stockbridges); for of the Munsees there probably remain not more than a half a dozen souls—were formerly an intelligent, prosperous people, not a whit behind the most advanced of the race, possessed of good farms, well instructed, and industrious. Unfortunately for them, though much to the advantage of the government, which acquired thereby a valuable tract of country for white settlement, they removed, in 1857, to their present place ...

— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed, entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-de-camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and then brought ...

— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

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