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American Dictionary of the English Language

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Our


OUR, adjective

1. Pertaining or belonging to us; as our country; our rights; our troops.

2. Ours, which is primarily the possessive case of our is never used as an adjective, but as a substitute for the adjective and the noun to which it belongs. Your house is on a plain; ours is on a hill. This is good English, but certainly ours must be the nominative to is, or it has none.

Their organs are better disposed than ours for receiving grateful impressions from sensible objects.

Here ours stands in the place of our organs, and cannot, in conformity with any rule of construction, be in the possessive case.

The same thing was done by them in suing in their courts, which is now done by us in suing in ours.