English
have
Pronunciation
  • (stressed) IPA: /hæv/
  • (unstressed) IPA: /həv/, /əv/, /ə/
  • (have to) (British, America) IPA: /hæf/, (British) IPA: /hæv/
  • (obsolete) IPA: /heɪv/
Etymology 1

From Middle English haven, from Old English habban, from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, from Proto-Germanic *habjaną, durative of *habjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂pyéti, present tense of *keh₂p- ("to take, seize, catch").

Since there is no common Indo-European root for a transitive possessive verb have (notice that Latin habeō is not etymologically related to English have), Proto-Indo-European probably lacked the have structure. Instead, the third person forms of be were used, with the possessor in dative case, compare Latin mihi est / sunt, literally to me is / are.

Cognate with Saterland Frisian hääbe, Western Frisian hawwe, Dutch hebben, Afrikaans hê, Low German hebben, hewwen ("to have"), German haben, Danish have, Swedish hava, Norwegian Nynorsk ha, Icelandic hafa, Albanian kap, Latin capiō, Russian хапать.

Verb

have (has, present participle having; simple past and past participle had)

  1. (transitive) To possess, own.
    I have a house and a car.
  2. (transitive) To hold, as something at someone's disposal.
    Look what I have here—a frog I found on the street!
    Do you have the key? (not necessarily one's own key)
  3. (transitive) To include as a part, ingredient, or feature.
    The stove has a handle. The shirt has sleeves.
    The words cow and dog have three letters.
    A government has three branches: the executive, legislative, and judicial.
    The movie has lots of action.
  4. (transitive) Used to state the existence or presence of someone in a specified relationship with the subject.
    I have two sisters.
    She doesn’t have any friends.
    I have a really mean boss.
  5. (transitive) To consume or use up (a particular substance or resource, especially food or drink).
    I have breakfast at six o'clock.
    You've already had five drinks!
    She's had more than enough time already.
  6. (transitive) To undertake or perform (an action or activity).
    Can I have a look at that?
    He's having a tantrum about it.
    I’m going to have a bath now.
    Let’s have a game of tiddlywinks.
  7. (transitive) To be scheduled to attend, undertake or participate in.
    What class do you have right now? I have English.
    Fred won’t be able to come to the party; he has a meeting that day.
    I have a lot of work to do.
  8. (transitive) To experience, go through, undergo.
    We had a hard year last year, with the locust swarms and all that.
    He had surgery on his hip yesterday.
    I’m having the time of my life!
    I hope you have a wonderful birthday.
    This year we're having Christmas with my wife's family in Thunder Bay.
  9. (transitive) To be afflicted with, suffer from.
    He had a cold last week.
  10. (auxiliary verb, taking a past participle) Used in forming the perfect aspect.
    I have already eaten today.
    I had already eaten.
    I will have left by the time you get here.
  11. Used as an interrogative verb before a pronoun to form a tag question, echoing a previous use of 'have' as an auxiliary verb or, in certain cases, main verb. (For further discussion, see the appendix English tag questions.)
    They haven’t eaten dinner yet, have they?
    Your wife hasn’t been reading that nonsense, has she?
    He has some money, hasn’t he?
  12. (auxiliary verb, taking a to-infinitive) See have to.
    I have to go.
  13. (transitive) To give birth to.
    The couple always wanted to have children.
    My wife is having the baby right now!
    My mother had me when she was 25.
  14. (informal, usually passive) To obtain.
    The substance you describe can't be had at any price.
  15. (transitive) To engage in sexual intercourse with.
    He’s always bragging about how many women he’s had.
  16. (transitive) To accept as a romantic partner.
    Despite my protestations of love, she would not have me.
  17. (transitive with bare infinitive) To cause to, by a command, request or invitation.
    They had me feed their dog while they were out of town.
    Her very boyfriend is the person the criminal has do most of her dirty deeds.
  18. (transitive with adjective or adjective-phrase complement) To cause to be.
    He had him arrested for trespassing.
    The lecture’s ending had the entire audience in tears.
    Jim has his eyes closed.
  19. (transitive with bare infinitive) To be affected by an occurrence. (Used in supplying a topic that is not a verb argument.)
    The hospital had several patients contract pneumonia last week.
    I’ve had three people today tell me my hair looks nice.
  20. (transitive with adjective or adjective-phrase complement) To depict as being.
    Their stories differed; he said he’d been at work when the incident occurred, but her statement had him at home that entire evening.
  21. (Britain, slang, transitive) To defeat in a fight; take.
    I could have him!
  22. (Britain, slang, transitive) To inflict punishment or retribution on.
    You broke the window! Teacher’ll have you for that!
  23. (dated, outside, Ireland, transitive) To be able to speak (a language).
    I have no German.
  24. (transitive) To feel or be (especially painfully) aware of.
    Dan certainly has arms today, probably from scraping paint off four columns the day before.
  25. (informal, often passive, transitive) To trick, to deceive.
    I bought a laptop online but it never arrived. I think I've been had!
    You had me alright! I never would have thought that was just a joke.
  26. (transitive, in the negative, often in continuous tenses) To allow; to tolerate.
    The child screamed incessantly for his mother to buy him a toy, but she wasn't having any of it.
    I asked my dad if I could go to the concert this Thursday, but he wouldn't have it since it's a school night.
    • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter II, in Jacob's Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC ↗; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC ↗, page 19 ↗:
      “ You're a very naughty boy. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. I won't have you chasing the geese!”
  27. (transitive, often used in the negative) To believe, buy, be taken in by.
    I made up an excuse as to why I was out so late, but my wife wasn't having any of it.
  28. (transitive) To host someone; to take in as a guest.
    Thank you for having me!
  29. (transitive) To get a reading, measurement, or result from an instrument or calculation.
    What do you have for problem two?
    I have two contacts on my scope.
  30. (transitive, of a jury) To consider a court proceeding that has been completed; to begin deliberations on a case.
    We’ll schedule closing arguments for Thursday, and the jury will have the case by that afternoon.
  31. (transitive, birdwatching) To make an observation of (a bird species).
  32. (transitive) To capture or actively hold someone's attention or interest.
    • 1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
      Thurs nite I went to see Lou Reed […] and Lou, oh God, he completely had me. I was lost at the foot of a god.
  33. (transitive) To grasp the meaning of; comprehend.
    Ah! Now I have it!
Conjugation
Conjugation of have

infinitive (to) have
present tense past tense
1st-person singular have had
2nd-person singular

 have, hast†

 had, hadst†
3rd-person singular

 has, have*, hath†

 had
plural

 have

subjunctive

 have

had
imperative

 have

—
participles

 having, haveing†

 had

†Archaic or obsolete. * Dialectal.

Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations
  • German: haben, sein
  • Italian: avere (for most verbs), essere (for some intransitive verbs and all reflexive verbs)
  • Portuguese: usually translated with the preterite indicative, with or without the adverb já ("already"), ter
  • Spanish: haber
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

have (plural haves)

  1. (usually, contrastive) A wealthy or privileged person.
    • 1981, Sepia:
      A good credit rating can mean the difference between being a have or a have not.
  2. (uncommon) One who has some (contextually specified) thing.
Antonyms Etymology 2

From have on ("to deceive").

Noun

have (plural haves)

  1. (AU, NZ, informal) A fraud or deception; something misleading.
    They advertise it as a great deal, but I think it's a bit of a have.


This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Offline English dictionary