Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Something owned; a possession.
  • noun A piece of real estate.
  • noun Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title.
  • noun Something tangible or intangible, such as a claim or a right, in which a person has a legally cognizable, compensable interest.
  • noun Possessions considered as a group.
  • noun A theatrical prop.
  • noun An attribute, characteristic, or quality: synonym: quality.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To invest with (certain) properties or qualities.
  • To make a property or tool of; appropriate.
  • noun Any character always present in an individual or a class; an essential attribute; a peculiar quality; loosely, any quality or characteristic.
  • noun In logic, a character which belongs to the whole of a species, and to nothing else, but not to the essence or definition.
  • noun The right to the use or enjoyment or the beneficial right of disposal of anything that can be the subject of ownership; ownership; estate; especially, ownership of tangible things.
  • noun A thing or things subject to ownership; anything that may be exclusively possessed and enjoyed; chattels and land; possessions.
  • noun A thing required for some peculiar or specific use, as a tool; an accessory; specifically, in theaters, a stage requisite, as any article of costume or furniture, or other appointment, necessary to be produced in a scene (in this specific sense used also attributively).
  • noun Propriety.
  • noun Individuality; that which constitutes an individual.
  • noun A cloak or disguise.
  • noun See the adjectives.
  • noun Such right as a bailee has in the chattel transferred to him by the bailment.
  • noun Synonyms Attribute, Characteristic, etc. See quality.
  • noun Property, Effects, Chattels, Goods, Wares, Commodities, Merchandise, possessions, wealth. Property is the general word for those material things which are one's own, whether for sale or not. Effects applies to personal property, viewed as including the things even of least value. Chattels comprises every kind of property except freehold. (See the definitions of the classes real and personal, under chattel.) Goods includes a merchant's stock-in-trade, or one's movable property of any sort. Wares are manufactured articles, especially of the heavier sort, as earthenware, wooden-ware. Commodities are such movable articles as are necessities of life, and have a money value. Merchandise is the general word for articles of trade.
  • noun Specifically, in old English law, chattels as distinguished from ‘estate’ (lands).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun That which is proper to anything; a peculiar quality of a thing; that which is inherent in a subject, or naturally essential to it; an attribute.
  • noun An acquired or artificial quality; that which is given by art, or bestowed by man.
  • noun The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying, and disposing of a thing; ownership; title.
  • noun That to which a person has a legal title, whether in his possession or not; thing owned; an estate, whether in lands, goods, or money.
  • noun All the adjuncts of a play except the scenery and the dresses of the actors; stage requisites.
  • noun obsolete Propriety; correctness.
  • noun (Law) See under Literary.
  • noun one who has charge of the “properties” of a theater.
  • transitive verb obsolete To invest which properties, or qualities.
  • transitive verb obsolete To make a property of; to appropriate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Something that is owned.
  • noun A piece of real estate, such as a parcel of land.
  • noun real estate; the business of selling houses.
  • noun The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing.
  • noun An attribute or abstract quality associated with an individual, object or concept.
  • noun An attribute or abstract quality which is characteristic of a class of objects.
  • noun computing An editable or read-only parameter associated with an application, component or class, or the value of such a parameter.
  • noun usually in the plural, theater An object used in a dramatic production
  • verb obsolete To invest with properties, or qualities.
  • verb obsolete To make a property of; to appropriate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun something owned; any tangible or intangible possession that is owned by someone
  • noun any area set aside for a particular purpose
  • noun a basic or essential attribute shared by all members of a class
  • noun a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished
  • noun any movable articles or objects used on the set of a play or movie

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French propriete, from Latin proprietās, ownership (translation of Greek idiotēs), from proprius, one's own; see per in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English /Anglo-Norman proprete, from Middle French propreté, from Old French propriete (modern propriété), itself, from Latin proprietas, from proprius 'own'.

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Examples

  • I could equally have labeled this usage as property' or property* or property1, but that's even clunkier.

    April 2006 2006

  • I could equally have labeled this usage as property' or property* or property1, but that's even clunkier.

    Arrrrrrrrrrrrr 2006

  • District of Columbia -- if Congress has a right to annihilate property in the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely annihilate its existence _as_ property when public safety requires it, especially if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that which as _property_ periled the public interests.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or after a day or two, he was _equally_ his property, and the objector admits that in the _first_ case the master is to be "surely punished" for destroying _his own property_!

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Why did he punish with death for stealing a very little of _that_ sort of property, and make a mere fine, the penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property -- especially if God did by his own act annihilate the difference between man and _property, _ by putting him on a level with it?

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Instead of _taking_ "private property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "_private property_ shall not be taken; and those who have been robbed of it already, shall be kept out of it no longer; and every man's right to his own body shall be protected."

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • District of Columbia -- if Congress has a right to annihilate property in the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely annihilate its existence _as_ property when the public safety requires it, especially if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that which as _property_ perilled the public interests.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or continued a day or two, he was _equally_ his master's property, and the objector admits that in the _first_ case the master is to be "surely punished" for destroying _his own property_!

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • ACTS constitute protection; and is that public sentiment which makes the slave 'property,' and perpetrates hourly robbery and batteries upon him, so penetrated with a sense of the sacredness of his right to life, that it will protect it at all hazards, and drag to the gallows his OWNER, if he take the life of his own _property_?

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Why punish with death for stealing a very little of _that_ sort of property, and make a mere fine the penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property -- especially if by his own act, God had annihilated the difference between man and _property_, by putting him on a level with it?

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

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