Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To deprive of possession: expropriated the property owners who lived in the path of the new highway.
- v. To transfer (another's property) to oneself.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To hold no longer as one's own; disengage from appropriation; give up a claim to the exclusive property of.
- To take or condemn for public use by the right of eminent domain, thus divesting the title of the private owner.
- Hence To dispossess; exclude, in general.
Wiktionary
- v. To deprive a person of their property. To confiscate. Usually in reference to taking property for public use.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To put out of one's possession; to surrender the ownership of; also, to deprive of possession or proprietary rights.
WordNet 3.0
- v. deprive of possessions
Etymologies
- Medieval Latin expropriāre, expropriāt- : Latin ex-, ex- + Latin propriāre, to appropriate (from proprius, one's own; see proper).
Examples
“This contrasts with the political argument of the far-left, to expropriate from the rich to serve the “base”, the working class.”
“Faced with persistent food shortages, the government of Venezuela last week warned it could "expropriate" any food company necessary to ensure the nation's "food security and sovereignty.”
The Wall Street Journal: The Unsavory Cost of Capping Food Prices
“I have blogged earlier that after reviewing the agreement of several toll concessions, including Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong (LDP), Cheras Grand Saga Highway, KESAS and Butterworth Outer Ring Road (BORR), the Government is able to 'expropriate' these highways by giving between 3 to 6 months 'notice at' reasonable 'prices.”
“expropriate" resources and energies of OTHER people and try to subject other cultures to do”
“We know that Roosevelt didn't expropriate the rich.”
American Mugabe?, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“I know much has been made about his father, Ralph, being a Marxist, but as I understood it, Marx wanted to "expropriate the expropriators", not ask them to behave more responsibly.”
The Guardian: Ed Miliband's got the right idea – move back to the left
“Dublin plans to expropriate citizens' property to help keep intact a deeply flawed currency club.”
“How very easy it was in 1949 to expropriate private land, and how extremely difficult it is now to return the land to private owners and so eliminate the "mass incidents.”
The Wall Street Journal: Land Tenure Is a Big Issue for China
“So when the ordinary taxes were not enough for particular projects, Medieval monarchs would raid Jewish communities and expropriate what they could (which could be everything from a simple seizing of goods to an outright pogrom).”
“Note also that the theory works best when state expropriate mobile assets and works worst when states persecute nationally unpopular groups like, say, accused sexual predators who have nowhere to flee because they are too few in number to capture a state government ...”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Why do Libertarians Like Federalism?
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘expropriate’.
jwjarvis the capital that was expropriated in taxes (or, if the money was borrowed, that eventually must be expropriated in taxes) Oct 1, 2010