possess

Other forms of possess

past tense

possessed·

present participle

possessing·

third person

possesses·

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 possess

What does possess mean?

possess means "have as an attribute, knowledge, or skill". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in possess?

possess has 2 syllables: pos-sess. The stress falls on "sess". In IPA it is /pəˈzɛs/.

What is another word for possess?

Close synonyms include own, have. 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 possess a common word?

possess is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. 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 possess?

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