ownsome

comparative more ownsome · superlative most ownsome

1. Marked by possession, ownership, or belonging; proper.

   The second joy that Mary had, It was the joy of two, To see her ownsome Jesus To make the lame to go.

   2016, B. Spurr, See the Virgin Blest: The Virgin Mary in English Poetry, page 61

   3 more examples

   Ranging somebody else's ownsome ground, Lacking somebody else's thrill, Haunting somebody else's too profound, Just a-ghosting for somebody else!

   1939, Harriet Monroe, Morton Dauwen Zabel, George Dillon, Poetry, volumes 53-54, page 110

   I was doin' what I had to do to save my cares, those that still breathed, and if this cost me my ownsome life, well, that was the price that I had to pay.

   2010, Ardath Mayhar, Robert Reginald, Slaughterhouse World, page 192

   This mother-diction engenders the mother-language as such (and therefore the ownsome wyrd of a manhood) in that it firmly hands over the speaking of that language unto its wyrdly biding as a say of en-owning.

   2014, Ivo De Gennaro, The Weirdness of Being

plural ownsomes

1. informalOne's own; one's lonesome.

   Am I going to have to go there on my ownsome?

   1 more example

   Nelson Lavin had been a month at home on his ownsome watching Judge Judy at five in the morning.

   2019, Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier, New York: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 162