Appropriation

How to spell appropriation

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce appropriation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does appropriation mean?

1. nounThe act of taking something for one's own use, often without the owner's permission.
2. nounA sum of money formally set aside by an authority for a specific purpose.

Appropriation in a sentence

• The artist was accused of the appropriation of designs that belonged to someone else.

• The council approved an appropriation of two million pounds for road repairs.

• Unauthorised appropriation of company equipment can lead to dismissal.

• The budget included a fresh appropriation for the new hospital wing.

Where does appropriation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb appropriare, meaning 'to make something one's own', which was built from the prefix ad- (here softened to ap-, meaning 'to' or 'toward') and the adjective proprius, meaning 'one's own' or 'belonging to oneself'. That same proprius gives us the everyday words 'property', 'proper', and 'proprietor', all of which carry the idea of personal ownership. The Latin verb passed through Old French as approprier and arrived in English in the late 1300s, at first meaning simply to take something for one's exclusive use. Over time it branched into two practical senses: the broad sense of taking or claiming something, and the bureaucratic sense of formally setting aside money for a stated purpose. The doubled 'p' near the start and the single 'p' in the proprius stem are the spelling trap, and remembering 'proper property' helps fix both.

How the word is built

• ap- (ad-: to)
• propri (from Latin proprius: one's own)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)