Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black) to surpass, to overcome; to dominate.

1912		Van Loan ‘Behind the Mask’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 227: It would be just like Bill to ‘try to own O’Higgins from the jump.’.
1947		S.C. Adams Jr. interviewee q. in Adams Thesis in Gordon & Nemerov Lost Delta Found (2005) 281: ‘Now supposing I had gotten food, meat, money for a car, and things like that—well that white man woulda been owning me’.
1951		C. Stoker Thicker ’n Thieves 64: Sergeant Rudolph was a vice squad big wheel in the days when [gangsters] Guy McAfee and Bob Gans ‘owned’ the city.
1969		R. Starnes Flypaper War 79: ‘A chinless little Netherlander is his appointments clerk, chamberlain, chief procurer [...] Name of Van Ronk. The oil company owns Van Ronk’.
1974		G. Radano Stories Cops Only Tell Each Other 54: [T]he judges! It costs fifty, a hundred big ones for that job. [...] And when a judge can’t put up his own cash for the job, somebody owns him.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 26: The Hell’s Angels owned Alphabet City.
1998		K. Anderson Night Dogs 48: ‘Should of drafted old Godzilla. Sent him to The ’Nam. We’d own that fucked-up country now’.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 own Definition: to defeat or become greater than. Example: You’ve been owned!
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.
2009		J. Stahl Pain Killers 21: Blacks owned the hoops.
2010		BBC News ‘Report on Teenage Slang’ 11 Mar. [radio] owned = beaten up, made a fool of.
2012		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. 2011.
2017		theculturetrip.com ‘Guide to London Slang 10 Jan. 🌐 Owned – to be made a fool of.
2017		J.R. Lawrence My Camp 147: ‘Caffeine is a drug and millions of Muslims drink it every day, are they bad?’ ’I don’t,’ replied Mejri in a haughty tone, while sitting there with a can of coke in his hand. At which point everyone leapt on him and pointed out that Coca-Cola contained caffeine. It was great to see him get owned like that and have no way of coming back.
2022		A. Kirzman Giuliani 28: [T]he determination to get into the head and under the skin of his opponents—to own the adversary.