'Own,' 'owe,' and 'ought' share one PIE root — connecting possession, debt, and moral obligation.
As adjective: belonging to or done by a particular person. As verb: to possess or have as property.
From Old English 'agen' (own, possessed, peculiar to), the past participle of 'agan' (to own, to possess, to have), from Proto-Germanic *aiganaz (possessed, owned), from PIE *h2eyk- (to be master of, to possess). This root is one of the oldest possession-markers in the Indo-European family: it produced Sanskrit 'ise' (he possesses, he rules, he is master), Avestan 'isaiti' (he possesses), and Gothic 'aigan' (to have). The English modal auxiliary 'ought' also descends from Old English 'agan' — 'ought' was originally the past tense of 'owe,' a