owndom

English

Etymology

From own +‎ -dom, a calque of German Eigentum (“property”), from eigen (“own”) +‎ -tum (“-dom”). Compare Saterland Frisian Oaindum (“property, possession”), Dutch eigendom, West Frisian eigendom.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊn.dəm/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊn.dəm/

Noun

owndom (countable and uncountable, plural owndoms) (uncommon)

1. Property.
   • 1876, The Musical World:

     The past is our own, the present is the owndom of the future.

   • 1895, Stephen Pearl Andrews, The science of society:

     Hence we maintain that man cannot be a man without property. He cannot be his own without an outward owndom.

   • 1980, John Morris Dorsey, University professor John M. Dorsey:

     There must be a tormenting feeling of self-insufficiency in me until I can realize that my self-possession subsumes my all. I must endure my goading ambition until I can acknowledge ownership of all of my owndom.

2. Personal belongings; possessions.
3. A characteristic; quality; attribute; trait.
4. Ownership; possession.
   • 1894, Sturla Þórðarson, Guðbrandur Vigfússon, Sir George Webbe Dasent, Icelandic sagas and other historical documents relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles:

     The king answers, and began first to say how Harold fair-hair had owned all the allodial land the Orkneys, "but the earls have held it since in fief, but never as their owndom […] "

5. Control of oneself; self-mastery.