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have¹

  • /ˈhæv/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ˈhav/ British, Northern England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales
  • /ˈhɛv/ New Zealand
  • /ˈheɪ̯v/ obsolete
  • /ˈ(h)əv/ unstressed
  • [ˈ(h)əv] unstressed

Sounds like halve (Canada, US (except New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore); Scotland), of (unstressed, for some speakers) · Rhymes with -æv

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

substratebor.?

Proto-Indo-European *kap-der.

Proto-Germanic *habjaną

Proto-West Germanic *habbjan

Old English habban

Middle English haven

English have

From Middle English haven, from Old English habban (“to have”), from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to have”), durative of *habjaną (“to lift, take up”), from Proto-Indo-European *kapyéti, an imperfective formation to the root *kap- (“to take, seize, catch”). Related to heave.

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.

The nonstandard etymology 1, verb sense 34 (“to be (an age)”) is a semantic loan from other languages’ term for “to possess, own”, such as French avoir, Polish mieć, and Spanish tener.

Cognates

Cognate with Scots hae (“to have”), North Frisian haa, heewe (“to have”), Saterland Frisian häbe, hääbe (“to have”), West Frisian hawwe (“to have”), Afrikaans hê (“to have”), Alemannic German haa, heen, hoh, hä, häbä, hè (“to have”), Bavarian hobm, hobn, hoom, håbn (“to have”), Cimbrian haban, hen, håm (“to have”), Dutch and Low German hebben (“to have”), German haben (“to have”), Limburgish haane, höbbe (“to have”), Luxembourgish hunn (“to have”), Mòcheno hom (“to have”), Vilamovian hon (“to have”), Yiddish האָבן (hobn, “to have”), Danish have (“to have”), Elfdalian åvå (“to have”), Faroese hava (“to have”), Icelandic hafa (“to have”), Norwegian Bokmål ha (“to have”), Norwegian Nynorsk ha, hava, have, hå (“to have”), Swedish ha, hafva, hava (“to have”), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌽 (haban, “to have”), Albanian kap (“to grab, catch, grip”), Latin capiō (“take”, verb), Russian хапать (xapatʹ, “to seize”).

verb has · having · had · have

  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!
  3. transitive To include as a part, ingredient, or feature. The stove has a handle. The shirt has sleeves.
  4. transitive Used to state the existence or presence of someone in a specified relationship with the subject. I have two sisters.
  5. transitive To consume or use up (a particular substance or resource, especially food or drink). I have breakfast at six o'clock.
  6. transitive To undertake or perform (an action or activity). Can I have a look at that?
  7. transitive To be scheduled to attend, undertake or participate in. What class do you have right now? I have English.
  8. transitive To experience, go through, undergo. We had a hard year last year, with the locust swarms and all that.
  9. transitive To be afflicted with, suffer from. He had a cold last week.
  10. auxiliary, with past participle Used in forming the perfect aspect. I have already eaten today.
  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?
  12. auxiliary, with infinitive, with to See have to. I have to go.
  13. transitive To give birth to. The couple always wanted to have children.
  14. informal, passive, usually 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 infinitive To cause to, by a command, request or invitation. They had me feed their dog while they were out of town.
  18. transitive, with adjective To cause to be. He had him arrested for trespassing.
  19. transitive, with infinitive To be affected by an occurrence. (Used in supplying a topic that is a small clause.) The hospital had several patients contract pneumonia last week.
  20. transitive, with adjective 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. UK, slang, transitive To defeat in a fight; take. I could have him!
  22. UK, slang, transitive To inflict punishment or retribution on. When we did a rerecorded version for Top of the Pops, the Musicians' Union bloke said, "If I think you're making strings sounds out of a synthesiser, I'm going to have you. Video Killed the Radio Star is putting musicians out of business."
  23. 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!
  26. transitive To allow; to tolerate. The child screamed incessantly for his mother to buy him a toy, but she wasn't having any of it.
  27. often, transitive 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?
  30. transitive 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 To make an observation of (a bird species). For some reason, "I had a Freckled Duck today" never seems to work as a pick-up line.
  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!
  34. nonstandard, transitive To be (an age). My name is Helene de Pontis and I search penpals from all over the world, but not only. I have 20 years and I am a single.

Similar: sleep with, take

noun haves · haue · hae · hav

  1. contrastive, idiomatic, usually A wealthy or privileged person. A good credit rating can mean the difference between being a have or a have not.
  2. idiomatic, uncommon One who has some (contextually specified) thing. To find out whether you are a have or a have not, did you understand the malo and Brett sentence a few lines back? If no, this doesn't make any difference to me, as you are the proud possessor of something the 'haves' haven't got. You know exactly what you like and why you like it. The 'haves' prete

have²

  • /ˈhæv/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ˈhav/ British, Northern England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales
  • /ˈhɛv/ New Zealand
  • /ˈheɪ̯v/ obsolete
  • /ˈ(h)əv/ unstressed
  • [ˈ(h)əv] unstressed

Sounds like halve (Canada, US (except New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore); Scotland), of (unstressed, for some speakers) · Rhymes with -æv

Where it comes from

From have on (“to deceive”).

noun haves

  1. Australia, New Zealand, informal A fraud or deception; something misleading. They advertise it as a great deal, but I think it's a bit of a have.

have³

  • /ˈhæv/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ˈhav/ British, Northern England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales
  • /ˈhɛv/ New Zealand
  • /ˈheɪ̯v/ obsolete
  • /ˈ(h)əv/ unstressed
  • [ˈ(h)əv] unstressed

Sounds like halve (Canada, US (except New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore); Scotland), of (unstressed, for some speakers) · Rhymes with -æv

Where it comes from

Variant of haw.

noun haves

  1. dialectal A hawthorn. "Why, thin, what was it but the green laves o' the ould bush, an' the rid bunches o' the haves that war wavin' and shakin' in the moonlight."

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