Definition of: got

(got)
Past tense and past participle of GET. ♦ have got In the sense of must, have got is in wide colloquial use to add emphasis: I have (or I've) got to leave. In the sense of possess, have got is still more common in informal speech: We have got (or We've got) plenty and intend to keep it. This usage has long been challenged on the grounds (1) that have got properly means “have acquired,” and (2) that got is superfluous, since have alone would convey the same meaning. The usage is now defended as acceptable colloquial idiom on the grounds that have is so much used as an auxiliary that it has lost much of its primary sense of possess, and got therefore serves to restore and emphasize this meaning. When have is dropped, and got stands alone in the sense of must or of possess, it is illiterate, or at best dialectal, as in “I got rhythm” or “All God's chillun got wings.”