Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To take (a property) for public use.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.

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

  • transitive verb To put out of one's possession; to surrender the ownership of; also, to deprive of possession or proprietary rights.

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

  • verb To deprive a person of their private property for public use.

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

  • verb deprive of possessions

Etymologies

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

[Medieval Latin expropriāre, expropriāt- : Latin ex-, ex- + Latin propriāre, to appropriate (from proprius, one's own; see proper).]

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Examples

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Comments

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  • the capital that was expropriated in taxes (or, if the money was borrowed, that eventually must be expropriated in taxes)

    October 2, 2010