appropriate
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
appropriate¹
- /əˈpɹəʊ.pɹi.eɪt/ UK
- /əˈpɹoʊ.pɹi.eɪt/ US
Where it comes from
From Middle English appropriaten, from appropriat (“appropriated”) + -en, borrowed from Latin appropriātus, perfect passive participle of appropriō (“to make one's own”), from ad (“to”) + propriō (“to make one's own”), from proprius (“one's own, private”) + -ō (first conjugation verb-forming suffix).
verb appropriates · appropriating · appropriated
- To take to oneself; to claim or use, especially as by an exclusive right. Let no man appropriate the use of a common benefit.
- To set apart for, or assign to, a particular person or use, especially in exclusion of all others; with to or for. A spot of ground is appropriated for a garden.
- To annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property). Some [benefices] were appropriated to secular ecclesiastical corporations
- To make suitable to; to suit. Under the towers were a number of gloomy subterraneous apartments with vaulted roofs, the use of which imagination was left to guess, and could only appropriate to punishment and horror.
Similar: impropriate, steal, earmark
appropriate²
- /əˈpɹəʊ.pɹi.ɪt/ UK
- /əˈpɹəʊ.pɹi.ət/ UK
- /əˈpɹoʊ.pɹi.ɪt/ US
- /əˈpɹoʊ.pɹi.ət/ US
Where it comes from
From Middle English appropriat (“appropriated”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.
adjective more appropriate · most appropriate
- Suitable or fit; proper; felicitous. The headmaster wondered what an appropriate measure would be to make the pupil behave better.
- Suitable to the social situation or to social respect or social discreetness; socially correct; socially discreet; well-mannered; proper. I don't think it was appropriate for the cashier to tell me out loud in front of all those people at the checkout that my hairpiece looked like it was falling out of place.
- Set apart for a particular use or person; reserved.
- Of an action or thing: morally good; positive. Rescuing animals is an appropriate thing to do.
- Of an action or thing: pleasant.
Similar: felicitous, fitting, suitable
