Proprietor

How to spell proprietor

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce proprietor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does proprietor mean?

1. nounA person who owns a business, shop, hotel, or piece of property.

Proprietor in a sentence

• The proprietor of the corner cafe knows most of his regular customers by name.

• As sole proprietor of the firm, she keeps every profit and bears every loss.

Where does proprietor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin proprius, meaning 'one's own', which gave rise to proprietas, the noun for 'ownership' or 'property'. From that root English already had 'property' before 'proprietor' itself appeared in the 1600s as a term for someone who holds something as their own, especially an owner of land, a business, or a colonial grant. The ending was shaped to match the familiar Latin agent suffix -or, marking the person who performs the action, just as in 'creator' or 'editor'. The same proprius root sits behind the everyday words 'proper', 'property', and 'appropriate', all sharing the idea of something belonging to or fitting a particular owner. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the cluster -prie- with its quiet 'i', plus the agent ending -or rather than the more common -er, which is exactly why writers slip.

How the word is built

• propriet- (ownership, from Latin proprietas)
• -or (agent noun: one who does)