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had - What does it mean?

Definition of 'had'

English

Verb

(head)
  • (have)
  • *1814 , Jane Austen, Mansfield Park :
  • *:About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton.
  • (auxiliary) Used to form the pluperfect tense, expressing a completed action in the past (+ past participle).
  • *2011 , Ben Cooper, The Guardian , 15 April:
  • *:Cooper seems an odd choice, but imagine if they had taken MTV's advice and chosen Robert Pattinson?
  • As past subjunctive: ‘would have’.
  • *1499 , (John Skelton), The Bowge of Courte :
  • *:To holde myne honde, by God, I had grete payne; / For forthwyth there I had him slayne, / But that I drede mordre wolde come oute.
  • *, II.4:
  • *:Julius Cæsar had escaped death, if going to the Senate-house, that day wherein he was murthered by the Conspirators, he had read a memorial which was presented unto him.
  • *1849 , , In Memoriam , 24:
  • *:If all was good and fair we met, / This earth had been the Paradise / It never look’d to human eyes / Since our first Sun arose and set.
  • Usage notes

    Had'', like (that), is one of a very few words to be correctly used twice in succession in English, e.g. ''He had had several operations previously.

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    Similar to 'had'

    head, hoed, hid, hod, heed, hood, hud, haad, hed, hued, hoid, hied