appropriate
/əˈpɹoʊ.pɹi.eɪt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.67 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To set apart for, or assign to, a particular person or use, especially in exclusion of all others; with to or for.
Transitive verb
verb
To annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property).
British usage; Transitive verb
adj
Suitable or fit; proper; felicitous.
Example Sentences
- "Let no man appropriate the use of a common benefit."
- ""I promise you," said she, after a pause of some minutes, "to wear the last new dress you gave me, it is a triumph of taste!" Lord Marchmont bowed, and appropriated the compliment as if the taste had been his own, not the milliner's."
- "We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day."
- "On the morning after the one-day strike, October 4, one of the Type 4s on crew-training, No. D169, was appropriated to head the 3 a.m. mail to Hull, as no steam locomotive had been lit up and the usual Hull Type 3 was not available; [...]."
- "Loitering, panhandling, soliciting prostitution, graffiti writing―these activities [are claimed to] foster serious criminality. As a result, disorder in itself has become a harm that justifies the criminal sanction. By appropriating harm in this way, the order-maintenance approach to criminal justice has disarmed the traditional progressive 1960s response of "no harm.""
- "A spot of ground is appropriated for a garden."
Etymology
From Middle English appropriaten, from appropriat (“appropriated”) + -en, borrowed from Latin appropriātus, perfect passive participle of appropriō (“to make one's own”), from ad (“to”) + propriō (“to make one's own”), from proprius (“one's own, private”) + -ō (first conjugation verb-forming suffix).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *preyH-, appropriaten, appropriātus, appropriat
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əˈpɹoʊ.pɹi.eɪt/
- British English: /əˈpɹəʊ.pɹi.eɪt/
Usage
- Transitive verb
- British usage
- Archaic
- Obsolete
Inflected Forms
appropriates (present, singular)
appropriating (participle, present)
appropriated (participle, past)
appropriated (past)
more appropriate (comparative)
most appropriate (superlative)