obtain

Other forms of obtain

past tense

obtained·

present participle

obtaining·

third person

obtains·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about obtain

What does obtain mean?

obtain means "come into possession of". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in obtain?

obtain has 2 syllables: ob-tain. The stress falls on "tain". In IPA it is /əbˈteɪn/.

What is another word for obtain?

Close synonyms include receive, get, find, incur, prevail. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is obtain a common word?

obtain is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with obtain?

10 words rhyme with obtain. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.