Proprietary

How to spell proprietary

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce proprietary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does proprietary mean?

1. adjectiveBelonging to a particular owner and protected by exclusive legal rights, such as a patent, trademark, or private licence.

Proprietary in a sentence

• The software runs on a proprietary format that competitors cannot legally copy.

• The chef refused to share the proprietary blend of spices that made the sauce famous.

Where does proprietary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin proprietarius, meaning 'an owner', which was itself built on proprietas, the noun for 'ownership' or 'property'. At the very bottom of the family sits the adjective proprius, meaning 'one's own' or 'belonging to oneself', the same root that gives English 'proper', 'property', and 'appropriate'. English took the word in during the late Middle Ages, around the 1400s, partly through Medieval Latin legal writing and partly through Old French, where it first named a person who held something as his own. Over time the adjective sense took over, describing anything held under exclusive ownership, such as a patented formula or a branded product. The tricky spelling, with that easily dropped second syllable -prie- and the unstressed -ary ending, comes straight from the Latin proprius, so remembering 'proper' plus the noun 'property' helps anchor the letters.

How the word is built

• proprie- (from Latin proprietas: ownership, property)
• -ary (adjective/noun suffix)