Have, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Had; p. pr. & vb. n. Having. Indic. present, I have, thou hast, he has; we, ye, they have.]
Etymology: [OE. haven, habben, AS. habben (imperf. hæfde, p. p. gehæfd); akin to OS. hebbian, D. hebben, OFries, hebba, OHG. hab, G. haben, Icel. hafa, Sw. hafva, Dan. have, Goth. haban, and prob. to L. habere, whence F. avoir. Cf. Able, Avoirdupois, Binnacle, Habit.]
1. To hold in possession or control; to own; as, he has a farm.
2. To possess, as something which appertains to, is connected with, or affects, one. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has. Shak. He had a fever late. Keats.
3. To accept possession of; to take or accept. Break thy mind to me in broken English; wilt thou have me Shak.
4. To get possession of; to obtain; to get. Shak.
10 more senses
5. To cause or procure to be; to effect; to exact; to desire; to require. It had the church accurately described to me. Sir W. Scott. Wouldst thou have me turn traitor also Ld. Lytton.
6. To bear, as young; as, she has just had a child.
7. To hold, regard, or esteem. Of them shall I be had in honor. 2 Sam. vi. 22.
8. To cause or force to go; to take. "The stars have us to bed." Herbert. "Have out all men from me." 2 Sam. xiii. 9.
9. To take or hold (one's self); to proceed promptly; -- used reflexively, often with ellipsis of the pronoun; as, to have after one; to have at one or at a thing, i. e., to aim at one or at a thing; to attack; to have with a companion. Shak.
10. To be under necessity or obligation; to be compelled; followed by an infinitive. Science has, and will long have, to be a divider and a separatist. M. Arnold. The laws of philology have to be established by external comparison and induction. Earle.
11. To understand. You have me, have you not Shak.
12. To put in an awkward position; to have the advantage of; as, that is where he had him. [Slang]
Note: Have, as an auxiliary verb, is used with the past participle to form preterit tenses; as, I have loved; I shall have eaten. Originally it was used only with the participle of transitive verbs, and denoted the possession of the object in the state indicated by the participle; as, I have conquered him, I have or hold him in a conquered state; but it has long since lost this independent significance, and is used with the participles both of transitive and intransitive verbs as a device for expressing past time. Had is used, especially in poetry, for would have or should have. Myself for such a face had boldly died. Tennyson. To have a care, to take care; to be on one's guard. -- To have (a man) out, to engage (one) in a duel. -- To have done (with). See under Do, v. i. -- To have it out, to speak freely; to bring an affair to a conclusion. -- To have on, to wear. -- To have to do with. See under Do, v. t.
Syn. -- To possess; to own. See Possess.
Shades of meaning
Have is the most general word, and is applied to whatever belongs to or is connected with one; a man has a head or a head-ache, a fortune or an opinion, a friend or an enemy; he has time, or has need; he may be said to have what is his own, what he has borrowed, what has been entrusted to him, or what he has stolen. To possess a thing is to have the ownership with control and enjoyment of it. To hold is to have in one's hand, or securely in one's control; a man holds his friend's coat for a moment, or he holds a struggling horse; he holds a promissory note, or holds an office. To own is to have the right of property in; to possess is to have that right in actual exercise; to occupy is to have possession and use, with some degree of permanency, with or without ownership. A man occupies his own house or a room in a hotel; a man may own a farm of which he is not in possession because a tenant occupies it and is determined to hold it; the proprietor owns the property, but the tenant is in possession. To be in possession differs from possess in that to possess denotes both right and fact, while to be in possession denotes simply the fact with no affirmation as to the right. To have reason is to be endowed with the faculty; to be in possession of one's reason denotes that the faculty is in actual present exercise.