Etymology

possessive

pos·ses·sive
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Today it means: Of or pertaining to ownership or possession. Full definition →

Middle French possessif ← Latin possessivus
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The story

  1. Latin · derived frompossessivus“of or pertaining to possession”
  2. Middle French · derived frompossessif
  3. English todaypossessive

From Middle French possessif, from Latin possessivus (“of or pertaining to possession”), from possessiō (“possessing”), from possidēre (“to possess”). By surface analysis, possess + -ive.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.