A possessive adjective is an adjective that modifies a noun by identifying who has ownership or possession of it. For example, in the sentence Andrew lost his keys the word his is a possessive adjective that indicates the keys belong to Andrew. The most commonly used possessive adjectives are my, your, his, her, its, our, their, and whose. In order, these adjectives correspond to the pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we, they, and who.

As their name suggests, possessive adjectives are often used to express possession or ownership. 

Unlike many other adjectives, possessive adjectives can only be used directly in front of the noun that they modify:

✅ Correct: We went to my house.
❌ Incorrect: This house is my.

✅ Correct: The lions hunted their prey.
❌ Incorrect: I want to give the lions this toy because I know it is their.

We can’t use possessive adjectives as a subject, object, or as a subject complement. Instead, we need words known as possessive pronouns. Because they are pronouns, these words can be used in places that possessive adjectives can’t. The possessive pronouns that correspond to each pronoun and possessive adjective are:

 

You’ll notice that the words his and whose are both the possessive adjective and possessive pronouns used for the words he and who, which makes these two slightly easier to use than the others.