What does it mean to own stock

Basically it means that a stock holder has a share in the company it holds stock in. In a sense the stockholders own a piece of the company that it has stock in. Stock shares are traded, bought and sold at a stock exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange which is the best known, but by no means the only stock exchange. Stocks are a type of security, Securities are instruments giving to their legal holders rights to money or other property. Securities include stocks, bonds, notes, mortgages