have
noun
Meaning
A wealthy or privileged person.
One who has some (contextually specified) thing.
verb
Meaning
To possess, own.
"I have a house and a car."
To hold, as something at someone's disposal.
"Do you have the key? (not necessarily one's own key)"
Used to state the existence or presence of someone in a specified relationship with the subject.
"I have a really mean boss."
To partake of (a particular substance, especially food or drink, or action or activity).
"Can I have a look at that?"
To be scheduled to attend, undertake or participate in.
"Fred won't be able to come to the party; he has a meeting that day."
To experience, go through, undergo.
"He had surgery on his hip yesterday."
To be afflicted with, suffer from.
"He had a cold last week."
(auxiliary verb, taking a past participle) Used in forming the perfect aspect.
"I had already eaten."
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?"
(auxiliary verb, taking a to-infinitive) See have to.
"I have to go."
To give birth to.
"My mother had me when she was 25."
To engage in sexual intercourse with.
"He's always bragging about how many women he's had."
To accept as a romantic partner.
"Despite my protestations of love, she would not have me."
(transitive with bare infinitive) To cause to, by a command, request or invitation.
"They had me feed their dog while they were out of town."
(transitive with adjective or adjective-phrase complement) To cause to be.
"He had him arrested for trespassing."
(transitive with bare infinitive) To be affected by an occurrence. (Used in supplying a topic that is not a verb argument.)
"I've had three people today tell me my hair looks nice."
(transitive with adjective or adjective-phrase complement) 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."
To defeat in a fight; take.
"I could have him!"
(obsolete outside Ireland) To be able to speak (a language).
"I have no German."
To feel or be (especially painfully) aware of.
"Dan certainly has arms today, probably from scraping paint off four columns the day before."
To trick, to deceive.
"You had me alright! I never would have thought that was just a joke."
(often with present participle) To allow; to tolerate.
"I asked my dad if I could go to the concert this Thursday, but he wouldn't have it since it's a school night."
(often used in the negative) 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."
To host someone; to take in as a guest.
"Thank you for having me!"
To get a reading, measurement, or result from an instrument or calculation.
"I have two contacts on my scope."
(of a jury) 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."
To make an observation of (a bird species).
Synonyms