OWNER

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

Irregular inflected form: owner

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(law) someone who owns (is legal possessor of) a business

Example:

he is the owner of a chain of restaurants

Synonyms:

owner; proprietor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("owner" is a kind of...):

businessman; man of affairs (a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive))

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "owner"):

bookseller (the proprietor of a bookstore)

lease giver; lessor (someone who grants a lease)

letter (owner who lets another person use something (housing usually) for hire)

patron (the proprietor of an inn)

proprietress (a woman proprietor)

newspaper publisher; publisher (the proprietor of a newspaper)

renter (an owner of property who receives payment for its use by another person)

restauranter; restaurateur (the proprietor of a restaurant)

saloon keeper (the proprietor of a saloon)

timberman (an owner or manager of a company that is engaged in lumbering)

Derivation:

own (have ownership or possession of)

ownership (the act of having and controlling property)

ownership (the relation of an owner to the thing possessed; possession with the right to transfer possession to others)

ownership (the state or fact of being an owner)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who owns something

Example:

who is the owner of that friendly smile?

Synonyms:

owner; possessor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("owner" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "owner"):

holder (a person who holds something)

homeowner; householder (someone who owns a home)

part-owner (a person who owns something in common with others)

saver (someone who saves (especially money))

shipowner (someone who owns a ship or a share in a ship)

Derivation:

own (have ownership or possession of)

ownership (the act of having and controlling property)

ownership (the relation of an owner to the thing possessed; possession with the right to transfer possession to others)

ownership (the state or fact of being an owner)

Credits

Context examples:

"Who is he?" "The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I said the dog doesn't go, and that settles it. I don't believe he's your dog. You may have seen him sometime. You may even sometime have driven him for his owner.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Turtles, snakes and iguanas can transmit Salmonella bacteria to their owners.

(Animal Diseases and Your Health, NIH)

When driven with his mates to the new owners’ camp, Buck saw a slipshod and slovenly affair, tent half stretched, dishes unwashed, everything in disorder; also, he saw a woman.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Nevertheless, pure instinct prompts many of these dogs to herd their owners, especially the children of the family.

(Herding Breed, NCI Thesaurus)

She knew not that she had been the means of sending the owners of Cleveland away, in about seven days from the time of their arrival.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The seamen at their landing observed my canoe, and rummaging it all over, easily conjectured that the owner could not be far off.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Yes, believe it or not, there are crooks who are printing checks linked to other people’s accounts and actually writing out checks and signing the account owner’s name.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Quelala being the first owner of the Golden Cap, replied the Monkey, he was the first to lay his wishes upon us.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

The Boston Globe reports the Duke of Richmond is believed to have been the original owner of the parchment which the researchers dated to the 1780s.