own
part of speech
verb (own, owns, owned, owning); adjective and pronoun (own — after my, your, his…)
meaning for a pupil
1) To own something is to have it as yours. tree →
2) «My own book» is a book that is mine and nobody else's. tree →
3) «On your own» means alone, or without help. tree →
4) «To own up» means to admit you did something wrong. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: who has the things counted; «owns 5 cars»; like «has». In everyday life: «my own room», «make your own lunch», «on my own». In stories and manners: owning up to a mistake. In science: animals that have their own territory.
examples
- She owns 3 bikes. tree →
- He has his own room. tree →
- They own 20 sheep. tree →
- How many books does Tom own? tree →
- Can I walk to school on my own? tree →
- Make your own sandwich. tree →
- He owned up to breaking the vase. tree →
- Each bird has its own nest. tree →
- Who owns this jacket? tree →
- Ingratitude sometimes brings its own punishment. tree →
note
«Owns» is like «has»: it tells the amount someone has now. Trap: «on his own» means alone, not a number. «Own» always comes after a possessive: «my own», «their own», never «an own». «Owner» is the person who owns something.
In the corpora
- Some families pay children for extra jobs, like washing the car, but tidying your own room is just part of living together.
- Cashback at a shop means taking your own money out as cash while paying by card; it is not a gift.
- Own-brand food is often made in a similar way to famous brands but costs less because there is no big advertising.
- Fostering is looking after a child from another family for a while, when their own parents cannot cope for now.
- Not every illness needs medicine: a cold gets better on its own.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «own» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.