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Possession vs Authority - What's the difference?

possession | authority | Related terms |

Possession is a related term of authority.


As nouns the difference between possession and authority

is that possession is control or occupancy of something for which one does not necessarily have private property rights while authority is (label) the power to enforce rules or give orders.

As a verb possession

is (obsolete) to invest with property.

possession

English

Noun

(wikipedia possession) (en noun)
  • Control or occupancy of something for which one does not necessarily have private property rights.
  • Something that is owned.
  • The car quickly became his most prized possession .
    I would gladly give all of my worldly possessions just to be able to do that.
  • Ownership]]; [[take, taking, holding, keeping something as one's own.
  • The car is in my possession .
    I'm in possession of the car.
  • A territory under the rule of another country.
  • Réunion is the largest of France's overseas possessions .
  • The condition or affliction of being possessed by a demon or other supernatural entity.
  • Back then, people with psychiatric disorders were sometimes thought to be victims of demonic possession .
  • * Shakespeare
  • How long hath this possession held the man?
  • (sports) Control of the ball; the opportunity to be on the offensive.
  • The scoreboard shows a little football symbol next to the name of the team that has possession .
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2010 , date=December 29 , author=Chris Whyatt , title=Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Their first half was marred by the entire side playing too deep, completely unable to build up any form of decent possession once the ball left their bewildered defence.}}
  • (linguistics) A syntactic relationship between two nouns or nominals that may be used to indicate ownership.
  • Some languages distinguish between a construction like 'my car', which shows alienable possession''' — the car could become someone else's — and one like 'my foot', which has inalienable '''possession — my foot will always be mine.

    Usage notes

    * One who possesses is often said to have possession (of)'', ''hold possession (of)'', or ''be in possession (of) . * One who acquires is often said to take possession (of)'', ''gain possession (of)'', or ''come into possession (of) .

    Synonyms

    * ight (obsolete) * owndom, retention * See also

    Antonyms

    * absence

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To invest with property.
  • (Webster 1913)

    Statistics

    * ----

    authority

    English

    Alternative forms

    * authourity (obsolete)

    Noun

  • (label) The power to enforce rules or give orders.
  • * 1883 , (Howard Pyle), (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood)
  • But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.
  • (label) Persons in command; specifically, government.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny
  • , chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities . A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Legal highs: A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
  • (label) A person accepted as a source of reliable information on a subject.
  • * 1930 September 18, Albert Einstein, as quoted in Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (1988) by Banesh Hoffman
  • To punish me for my contempt of authority', Fate has made me an ' authority myself.

    Derived terms

    * moral authority