Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To take or claim for oneself without right; appropriate: Presidents who have arrogated the power of Congress to declare war. See Synonyms at appropriate.
- v. To ascribe on behalf of another in an unwarranted manner.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To claim or demand unduly or presumptuously; lay claim to in an overbearing manner: as, to arrogate power or dignity to one's self.
- To lay claim to on behalf of another: as, to arrogate to the crown the privilege of issuing writs.
- In Roman law, same as adrogate.
Wiktionary
- v. To appropriate or lay claim to something for oneself without right.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To assume, or claim as one's own, unduly, proudly, or presumptuously; to make undue claims to, from vanity or baseless pretensions to right or merit.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make undue claims to having
- v. demand as being one's due or property; assert one's right or title to
- v. seize and take control without authority and possibly with force; take as one's right or possession
Etymologies
- Latin arrogāre, arrogāt- : ad-, ad- + rogāre, to ask; see reg- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“I have to admit that I looked up the definition of "arrogate," which means "to claim or seize without right.”
The Wall Street Journal: Fund Managers Are Not the Cause of Rising Fund Fees
“They took a horrible set of events—the attacks of 9/11—and used them to create a climate of fear that would justify their drive to reinterpret the Constitution and arrogate unlimited power to themselves.”
“In creating the congressional intelligence committees and enacting FISA, Congress voted, with large bipartisan majorities, that the answer is no—the president cannot arrogate these powers to the executive branch or decide, in isolation, to reinterpret standing law.”
“The larger tragedy is that none of them objected to government health care, which will always take choices away from individuals and arrogate them to an infallible higher power in Washington.”
“For the DOF to now argue otherwise would be to arrogate unto itself legislative powers which it does not have.”
On the Great Book Blockade of 2009 (Updated 7 May) (with BDAP Paper) « BAHAY TALINHAGA
“One can quickly arrogate to oneself the role of God.”
The Huffington Post: Sister Mary Ann Walsh: The Choice To End All Choices
“Before Vitter, there was a Tom Delay and a host of other empty bags that arrogate the leadership tag to themselves.”
“They should blame judges like Stevens who arrogate to themselves the power to override the express conclusions of dozens of state legislatures based on their own personal views.”
“No, this is part and parcel of a campaign by conservatives to arrogate unto themselves and/or neutralize the language of social grievance.”
“Neocons arrogate unto themselves the right to make appeals to what they believe is the "dual loyalty" of American Jews -- most of whom, in fact, reject their radical ideology -- when trying to coerce support for their agenda.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘arrogate’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
jmjarmstrong JM shuts the arrogate after the steamroller. May 19, 2011