my
/maɪ/ determiner, interjection
Forms MYs ma mah me muh I's M/Y
- determiner Belonging to me. “I can't find my book.”
- determiner Associated with me. “My seat at the restaurant was uncomfortable.”
- determiner Related to me. “My parents won't let me go out tonight.”
- determiner In the possession of me. “I have to take my books back to the library soon.”
- interjection Used to express surprise, shock or amazement. “My, what big teeth you have!”
Etymology
From Middle English mi, my, apocopated form of min, myn, from Old English mīn (“my, mine”), from Proto-West Germanic *mīn, from Proto-Germanic *mīnaz (“my, mine”, pron.) (possessive of *ek (“I”)), from Proto-Indo-European *méynos (“my; mine”).
Cognate with West Frisian myn (“my”), Afrikaans my (“my”), Dutch mijn (“my”), German mein (“my”), Swedish min (“my”). More at me.
An abbreviation of an oath such as my word or my God.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Of or belonging to me; --used always attributively; as, my body; my book; --mine is used in the predicate; as, the book is mine. See Mine.
Etymology [OE. mi, fr. min. See Mine, and cf., for loss of n, A, a., An, a.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “my”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details