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Possession vs Thing - What's the difference?

possession | thing |

As nouns the difference between possession and thing

is that possession is control or occupancy of something for which one does not necessarily have private property rights while thing is (chiefly|historical) a public assembly or judicial council in a germanic country.

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

    * ----

    thing

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
  • , volume=189, issue=2, page=48, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= The tao of tech , passage=The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you […], "share the things you love with the world" and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.}}
  • A word, symbol, sign, or other referent that can be used to refer to any entity.
  • An individual object or distinct entity.
  • (informal) Something that is normal or generally recognised.
  • (legal) Whatever can be owned.
  • The latest fad or fashion.
  • (in the plural) Clothes, possessions or equipment.
  • (informal) A unit or container, usually containing edible goods.
  • (informal) A problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.
  • (slang) A penis.
  • * 1959 , , (Naked Lunch) , 50th anniversary edition (2009), p. 126:
  • “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing .”
  • A living being or creature.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Revenge of the nerds , passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}
  • That which matters; the crux.
  • * 1914 , Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, The Movie Man] [playscript:
  • Don’t forget to have Gomez postpone that shooting thing . (in reference to the execution of Fernandez)
  • (chiefly, historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
  • * 1974 , Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga , translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:
  • In accordance with Old Germanic custom men came to the thing fully armed, [...]
  • * 1974', Jakob Benediktsson, ''Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis'', in ''Saga Íslands'', quoted in '''1988 by Jesse L. Byock in ''Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power , page 85:
  • The goðar'' seem both to have received payment of ''thing-fararkaup from those who stayed home and at the same time compensated those who went to the thing , and it cannot be seen whether they had any profit from these transactions.
  • * 1988 , Jesse L. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power , page 59:
  • All Icelandic things were skap-thing , meaning that they were governed by established procedure and met at regular legally designated intevals at predetermined meeting places.

    Quotations

    * 1611 — (King James Version of the Bible), 1:1 *: Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...

    Synonyms

    * stuff (uncountable equivalent) * item * yoke (Ireland)

    Derived terms

    * anything * bright young thing * everything * here's the thing * nothing * see things * something * sweet young thing * swing of things * the thing is * thingal * thingamajig * thinger * thinghood * thingly * thingness * thingo * thingy *

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (rare) To express as a thing; to reify.
  • Statistics

    *