possession

Etymology

From Latin possessiō, possessiōnis.

noun

1. Control or occupancy of something for which one does not necessarily have private property rights.
   Once complete, guide rails will be installed inside the tunnels ready for the box jack itself - which NR intends to push into place during a nine-day engineering possession in September, following a trial push in late August. … A small number of weekday and weekend possessions will also be required on June 20-21, September 5-6, and between December 19-March 2021, … April 8 2020, Paul Stephen, “ECML dive-under drives divergence”, in Rail, page 44
2. Something that is owned.
   The car quickly became his most prized possession.
   I would gladly give all of my worldly possessions just to be able to do that.
3. Ownership; taking, holding, keeping something as one's own.
   The car is in my possession.
   I'm in possession of the car.
4. A territory under the rule of another country.
   Réunion is the largest of France's overseas possessions.
5. The condition or affliction of being possessed by a demon or other supernatural entity.
   Back then, people with psychiatric disorders were sometimes thought to be victims of demonic possession.
6. The condition of being under the control of strong emotion or madness.
7. (sports) Control of the ball; the opportunity to be on the offensive.
   The scoreboard shows a little football symbol next to the name of the team that has possession.
   Their first half was marred by the entire side playing too deep, completely unable to build up any form of decent possession once the ball left their bewildered defence. December 29, 2010, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC
8. (Australian rules football) A disposal of the ball during a game, i.e. a kick or a handball.
   2019 In the mix: Who's pushing for selection for round eight? Australian Football League, 7 May 2019. Accessed 7 May 2019. Defender Colin O'Riordan had 41 possessions in the NEAFL last week to continue his outstanding form, while Ryan Clarke had 47 in the Swans' big loss to Brisbane.
9. (linguistics) A syntactic relationship between two nouns or nominals that may be used to indicate ownership.
   Some languages distinguish between a construction like 'my car', which shows alienable possession — the car could become someone else's — and one like 'my foot', which has inalienable possession — my foot will always be mine.

verb

1. (obsolete) To invest with property.