Habban

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The Old English verb meaning to own, hold or possess something ; a helping verb used to form the perfect tenses of other verbs
2. An Old English verb expressing ownership or possession of a thing ; an auxiliary that builds perfect constructions with a past participle
3. Meaning to have or hold in Old English ; also serving as an auxiliary verb to form compound past tenses alongside participles

Etymology: Habban is the Old English verb meaning "to have" and "to hold," and it is the direct ancestor of the modern English "have." It belonged to the early West Germanic vocabulary, with cognates in Old Saxon "hebbian," Old Frisian "hebba," and Old High German "haben," which is the same verb that gives German its "haben." Old English speakers used it both for possessing objects and for holding something in the hand, a sense that survives in the older phrase "to have and to hold." Its forms were far more varied than the modern verb suggests. Old English "habban" appears in a range of present and past forms, and the consonant clusters shifted considerably over the centuries, producing the modern "have" and its irregular third-person "has." The auxiliary use, as in "I have eaten," developed gradually from the verb's sense of holding or possessing something.