Pos·ses·sion n.
 1. The act or state of possessing, or holding as one's own.
 2. Law The having, holding, or detention of property in one's power or command; actual seizin or occupancy; ownership, whether rightful or wrongful.
 Note: ☞ Possession may be either actual or constructive; actual, when a party has the immediate occupancy; constructive, when he has only the right to such occupancy.
 3. The thing possessed; that which any one occupies, owns, or controls; in the plural, property in the aggregate; wealth; dominion; as, foreign possessions.
    When the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.   --Matt. xix. 22.
    Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession.   --Acts v. 1.
    The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.   --Ob. 17.
 4. The state of being possessed or controlled, as by an evil spirit, or violent passions; madness; frenzy; as, demoniacal possession.
    How long hath this possession held the man?   --Shak.
 To give possession, to put in another's power or occupancy.
 To put in possession. (a) To invest with ownership or occupancy; to provide or furnish with; as, to put one in possession of facts or information. (b) Law To place one in charge of property recovered in ejectment or writ of entry.
 To take possession, to enter upon, or to bring within one's power or occupancy.
 Writ of possession Law, a precept directing a sheriff to put a person in peaceable possession of property recovered in ejectment or writ of entry.