Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Used as a modifier before a noun.
  • adjective Used preceding various forms of polite, affectionate, or familiar address.
  • adjective Used in various interjectional phrases.
  • interjection Used as an exclamation of surprise, pleasure, or dismay.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Belonging to me: as, this is my book: always used attributively, mine being used for the predicate. Formerly mine was more usual before a vowel, and my before a consonant, but my now stands before both: as, my book; my own book; my eye.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • Of or belonging to me; -- used always attributively; ; -- mine is used in the predicate. See mine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • interjection dated Used to express surprise, shock or amazement.
  • pronoun attributive Belonging to me.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English mi, from Old English mīn; see me- in Indo-European roots. Interj., short for My God!.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

An abbreviation of an oath such as my word or my lord

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English my, apocopated form of min, myn, from Old English mīn ("my, mine"), from Proto-Germanic *mīnaz (“my, mine”, pron.), genitive of Proto-Germanic *ek (“I”). Cognate with West Frisian myn ("my"), Afrikaans my ("my"), Dutch mijn ("my"), German mein ("my"). More at me.

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Examples

  •  There is a very good chance that as the sun sets on this Sunday, as I shower, wash my hair, brush off the crumbs from the bed (as any sane person must do), I will end the day the same way I ended the day yesterday;  my head buried in the pillows, desperate for your smell, your touch, your laugh, your smile.

    I see other women 2010

  • Perhaps it had something to do with my recent attempts to go AWOL in the County (okay, the last one was nine years ago, but that's still recent by _my_ standards).

    New Race Joe Sullivan 2010

  • I could write my own biography on a single page, but as I say,  my writing days are past ...

    IN THE JAWS OF KRONOS * Act I , scene 3 2010

  • My original post was created after I read something on Larry's OF Blog of the Fallen blog, although my comments weren't directly at his post..my post was just "inspired" by it.

    I'm Perfectly Happy with My Reading Habits, Even If You Aren't Jeff C 2010

  • This girl leans over, as I wonder if this is my discovery of a third nipple and will it lactate, and adjusts…..my necklace.

    I'm ill. I keep on as I have and I die. So what now? Elizabeth McClung 2009

  • I requested a copy of my 10 years of lab results and consult reports from my local healthcare network and then found some records of 4 other people in *my* file.

    Do statinators dream of engineered mice? | The Blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D. 2009

  •   I looked at the books on the shelves, which I still shared with my father: my music books, of which I was still very fond, among them Twenty Royal Phantasies for Three Viols;  my books on painting, one of which, a translation of Lomazzo's delightful A tracte containing the Artes of curious Paintinge, had shepherded my own earliest assays at drawing; and my parents 'volumes of works by the most noble Sir Philip Sidney.

    The Stream and The Torrent 2009

  • I'm certainly not about to read articles that try to teach my how to email _my_ friends and _my_ coworkers.

    The Essentials Of Email Etiquette | Lifehacker Australia 2009

  • I could acknowledge that though it was an enormous part of my life, and the home of some of the people I love most, it was no longer *my* home, and I just had to deal with it.

    Archive 2009-09-01 Ra 2009

  • This girl leans over, as I wonder if this is my discovery of a third nipple and will it lactate, and adjusts…..my necklace.

    Archive 2009-01-01 Elizabeth McClung 2009

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