The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Possession \Pos*ses"sion\, v. t.
   To invest with property. [Obs.]
   [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Possession \Pos*ses"sion\, n. [F. possession, L. possessio.]
   1. The act or state of possessing, or holding as one's own.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. (Law) The having, holding, or detention of property in
      one's power or command; actual seizin or occupancy;
      ownership, whether rightful or wrongful.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
         [1913 Webster]

   3. The thing possessed; that which any one occupies, owns, or
      controls; in the plural, property in the aggregate;
      wealth; dominion; as, foreign possessions.
      [1913 Webster]

            When the young man heard that saying, he went away
            sorrowful, for he had great possessions. --Matt.
                                                  xix. 22.
      [1913 Webster]

            Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession.
                                                  --Acts v. 1.
      [1913 Webster]

            The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
                                                  --Ob. 17.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. The state of being possessed or controlled, as by an evil
      spirit, or violent passions; madness; frenzy; as,
      demoniacal possession.
      [1913 Webster]

            How long hath this possession held the man? --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

possession
    n 1: the act of having and controlling property [syn:
         possession, ownership]
    2: anything owned or possessed
    3: being controlled by passion or the supernatural
    4: a mania restricted to one thing or idea [syn: monomania,
       possession]
    5: a territory that is controlled by a ruling state
    6: the trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior [syn:
       self-control, self-possession, possession, willpower,
       will power, self-command, self-will]
    7: (sport) the act of controlling the ball (or puck); "they took
       possession of the ball on their own goal line"

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

250 Moby Thesaurus words for "possession":
   aberration, abnormality, accessories, acquest, acquire,
   acquisition, affluence, alienation, ally, aplomb, appointments,
   appurtenances, archduchy, archdukedom, assets, assurance, baggage,
   balance, bedevilment, belongings, bewitchery, bewitchment,
   body politic, bottomless purse, brain damage, brainsickness,
   buffer state, bulging purse, captivation, captive nation, capture,
   care, chattels, chieftaincy, chieftainry, city-state, claiming,
   clouded mind, colony, commonweal, commonwealth, complex, composure,
   compulsion, confidence, conquer, constraint, control, country,
   county, craziness, custody, daftness, dementedness, dementia,
   derangement, discipline, disorientation, distraction, domain,
   dominion, duchy, duds, dukedom, earldom, easy circumstances,
   effects, embarras de richesses, empery, empire, enchantment,
   entrancement, equability, equanimity, equilibrium, equipment,
   estate and effects, fascination, fixation, fixed idea, fixtures,
   folie, fortune, free city, furnishings, furniture, furor, gold,
   goods, grand duchy, guardianship, handsome fortune, hang-up,
   havings, hereditament, high income, high tax bracket, hold,
   holding, holdings, hypercathexis, idee fixe, illusion, impedimenta,
   incorporeal hereditament, independence, insaneness, insanity,
   irrationality, irresistible impulse, keeping, kingdom, land,
   lares and penates, level head, levelheadedness, loss of mind,
   loss of reason, lucre, lunacy, luxuriousness, madness, mammon,
   mandant, mandate, mandated territory, mandatee, mandatory, mania,
   material wealth, maya, mental deficiency, mental derangement,
   mental disease, mental disorder, mental disturbance,
   mental illness, mental instability, mental sickness,
   mind overthrown, mindsickness, money, money to burn, moneybags,
   monomania, morbid drive, movables, nation, nationality, obsession,
   obsessive compulsion, obtain, occupy, oddness, opulence, opulency,
   ownership, paraphernalia, pelf, pixilation, poise, polis, polity,
   possessions, possessorship, power, preoccupation, prepossession,
   presence of mind, principality, principate, properties, property,
   proprietary, proprietorship, prosperity, prosperousness,
   protection, protectorate, province, puppet government,
   puppet regime, queerness, rabidness, realm, reasonlessness,
   reception, repossess, republic, restraint, riches, richness,
   ruling passion, satellite, secure, seize, self-assurance,
   self-command, self-confidence, self-conquest, self-control,
   self-denial, self-discipline, self-government, self-mastery,
   self-possession, self-restraint, seneschalty, senselessness,
   settlement, shattered mind, sick mind, sickness, six-figure income,
   sovereign nation, spirit control, state, strangeness, substance,
   sultanate, superpower, take, taking, taking away,
   taking possession, tangibles, tenure, territory, theft, things,
   tic, title, toparchia, toparchy, trappings, treasure, tricks,
   unbalance, unbalanced mind, unsaneness, unsound mind, unsoundness,
   unsoundness of mind, upper bracket, wealth, wealthiness,
   well-regulated mind, win, witchery, witlessness



Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

POSSESSION, intern. law. By possession is meant a country which is held by
no other title than mere conquest.
     2. In this sense Possession differs from a dependency, which belongs
rightfully to the country which has dominion over it; and from colony, which
is a country settled by citizens or subjects of the mother country. 3 Wash.
C. C. R. 286.



Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

POSSESSION, property. The detention or enjoyment of a thing which a man
holds or exercises by himself or by another who keeps or exercises it in his
name. By the possession of a thing, we always conceive the condition, in
which not only one's own dealing with the thing is physically possible, but
every other person's dealing with it is capable of being excluded. Thus, the
seaman possesses his ship, but not the water in which it moves, although he
makes each subserve his purpose.
     2. In order to complete a possession two things are required. 1st. That
there be an occupancy, apprehension, (q.v.) or taking. 2dly. That the taking
be with an intent to possess (animus possidendi), hence persons who have no
legal wills, as children and idiots, cannot possess or acquire possession.
Poth. h. It.; Etienne, h.t. See Mer. R. 358; Abbott on Ship. 9, et seq. But
an infant of sufficient understanding may lawfully acquire the possession of
a thing.
     3. Possession is natural or civil; natural, when a man detains a thing
corporeal, as by occupying a house, cultivating grounds or retaining a
movable in his custody; possession is civil, when a person ceases to reside
in the house, or on the land which he occupied, or to detain the movable he
possessed, but without intending to abandon the possession. See, as to
possession of lands, 2 Bl. Com. 116; Hamm. Parties, 178; 1 McLean's R. 214,
265.
     4. Possession is also actual or constructive; actual, when the thing is
in the immediate occupancy of the party. 3 Dey. R. 34. Constructive, when a
man claims to hold by virtue of some title, without having the actual
Occupancy; as, when the owner of a lot of land, regularly laid out, is in
possession of any part, he is considered constructively in possession of the
whole. 11 Vern. R. 129. What removal of property or loss of possession will
be sufficient to constitute larceny, vide 2 Chit. Cr. Law, 919; 19 Jurist,
14; Etienne, h.t. Civ. Code of Louis. 3391, et seq.
     5. Possession, in the civil law, is divided into natural and civil. The
same division is adopted by the Civil Code of Louisiana.
     6. Natural possession is that by which a man detains a thing corporeal,
as by occupying a house, cultivating ground, or retaining a movable in his
possession. Natural possession is also defined to be the corporeal detention
of a thing, which we possess as belonging to us, without any title to that
possession, or with a title which is void. Civ. Code of Lo. art. 3391, 3393.
     7. Possession is civil, when a person ceases to reside in a house or on
the land which he occupied, or to detain the movable which he possessed, but
without intending to abandon the possession. It is the detention of a thing,
by virtue of a just title, and under the conviction of possessing as owner.
Id. art. 3392, 3394.
     8. Possession applies properly only to corporeal things, movables and
immovables. The possession of incorporeal rights, such as servitudes and
other rights of that nature, is only a quasi. possession, and is exercised
by a species of possession of which these rights are susceptible. Id. art.
3395.
     9. Possession may be enjoyed by the proprietor of the, thing, or by
another for him; thus the proprietor of a house possesses it by his tenant
or farmer.
    10. To acquire possession of a property, two things are requisite. 1.
The intention of possessing as owner. 2. The corporeal possession of the
thing. Id. art. 3399.
    11. Possession is lost with or without the consent of the possessor. It
is lost with his consent, 1. When he transfers this possession to another
with the intention to divest himself of it. 2. When he does some act, which
manifests his intention of abandoning possession, as when a man throws into
the street furniture or clothes, of which he no longer chooses to make use.
Id. art. 3411. A possessor of an estate loses the possession against his
consent. 1. When another expels him from it, whether by force in driving him
away, or by usurping possession during his absence, and preventing him from
reentering. 2. When the possessor of an estate allows it to be usurped, and
held for a year, without, during that time, having done any act of
possession, or interfered with the usurper's possession. Id. art. 3412.
    12. As to the effects of the purchaser's taking possession, see Sugd.
Vend. 8, 9; 3 P. Wms. 193; 1 Ves. Jr. 226; 12 Ves. Jr. 27; 11 Ves. Jr. 464.
Vide, generally, 5 Harr. & John. 230, 263; 6 Har. & John. 336; 1 Har. &
John. 18; 1 Greenl. R. 109; 2 Har. & McH. 60, 254, 260; 3 Bibb, R. 209 1
Har. & McH., 210; 4 Bibb, R. 412, 6 Cowen, R. 632; 9 Cowen, R. 241; 5 Wheat.
R. 116, 124; Cowp. 217; Code Nap. art. 2228; Code of the Two Sicilies, art.
2134; Bavarian Code, B. 2, c. 4, n. 5; Prus. Code, art. 579; Domat, Lois
Civ. liv. 3, t, 7, s. 1; Vin. Ab. h.t.; Wolff, Inst. Sec. 200, and the note
in the French translation; 2 Greenl. Ev. Sec. 614, 615; Co. Litt. 57 a; Cro.
El. 777; 5 Co. 13; 7 John. 1.