My

Part of speech: pronoun, interjection

Definitions

1. Belonging to or associated with the person who is speaking or writing ; an exclamation expressing surprise, dismay or emphasis
2. Denoting something possessed by the speaker, as in one's own property ; a mild interjection used to show astonishment or distress
3. Indicating that a thing relates to the one doing the talking or writing ; a word spoken aloud to convey sudden surprise or alarm

Etymology: The possessive "my" is a shortened form of an older word. Its ancestor, "min," was the Old English possessive of "I," and in Middle English the "n" wore away in ordinary speech, leaving "my" as a dependable, unstressed word for "belonging to me." The same root produced cognates across the family: German "mein," Dutch "mijn," Swedish "min," and Afrikaans "my" all mean the same thing. The word has a second life as an interjection, and that use is older in spirit than the possessive suffix suggests. It survives mainly in expressions such as "my word" or "my God," where the possessive has been left behind as the rest of the phrase drops out. Speakers reach for the word to signal surprise, and the oath itself has been trimmed down to a single syllable of feeling.

Synonyms: oh, gosh