appropriate

present singular third person appropriates · participle present appropriating · participle past appropriated · past appropriated

1. transitiveTo take to oneself; to claim or use, especially as by an exclusive right.

   Let no man appropriate the use of a common benefit.

   4 more examples

   "I promise you," said she, after a pause of some minutes, "to wear the last new dress you gave me, it is a triumph of taste!" Lord Marchmont bowed, and appropriated the compliment as if the taste had been his own, not the milliner's.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Prudence in Politics”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 179

   We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

   On the morning after the one-day strike, October 4, one of the Type 4s on crew-training, No. D169, was appropriated to head the 3 a.m. mail to Hull, as no steam locomotive had been lit up and the usual Hull Type 3 was not available; [...].

   1962 December, “Motive Power Miscellany: North Eastern Region”, in Modern Railways, pages 422, 425

   Loitering, panhandling, soliciting prostitution, graffiti writing―these activities [are claimed to] foster serious criminality. As a result, disorder in itself has become a harm that justifies the criminal sanction. By appropriating harm in this way, the order-maintenance approach to criminal justice has disarmed the traditional progressive 1960s response of "no harm."

   2001, Bernard E. Harcourt, Illusion of Order

   Synonyms: help oneself

2. transitiveTo 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.

   2 more examples

   to appropriate money for the increase of the navy

   2012, The Washington Post, David Nakamura and Tom Hamburger, "Put armed police in every school, NRA urges" "I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation," LaPierre said.

   Synonyms: allocate

3. UKtransitiveecclesiasticalTo annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property).

   1 more example

   A vicar, from what has been advanced in the preceding page and note, muſt neceſſarily have an appropriator over him, or a ſinecure rector, who in ſome books is conſidered and called an appropriator. Of benefices, ſome have never been appropriated; conſequently in thoſe there there can be no vicar, and the incumbent is rector, and entitled to all the dues of the church. Some were appropriated to ſecular eccleſiaſtical corporations, which appropriations ſtill exiſt, except perhaps ſome few which may have been diſſolved; others were appropriated to the houſes of the regular clergy; all which appropriations, at the diſſolution of monaſteries, were transferred to the crown; and in the hands of the king or his grantees are now called impropriations: but in ſome appropriated churches no perpetual vicar has ever been endowed; in that caſe the officiating miniſter is appointed by the appropriator or impropriator, and is called a perpetual curate.

   1793, Edward Christian, “Of the Clergy”, in William Blackstone, Edward Christian, Commentaries on the Laws of England, […], 12th edition, book I (Of the Rights of Persons), London: […] A[ndrew] Strahan and W[illiam] Woodfall, […] for T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, note 23, pages 387–388

4. archaictransitiveTo 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.

   1790, Helen Maria Williams, Julia, Routledge, published 2016, page 67

   2 more examples

   Were we to take a portion of the skin, and contemplate its exquisite sensibility, so finely appropriated […] we should have no occasion to draw our argument, for the twentieth time, from the structure of the eye or the ear.

   1802, William Paley, Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity

   The fellow across the road gives up farming and turns his place into a pastoral bootleggery . Picnickers appropriate the lawn and declare for the proletariat . The sheriff comes , argues with them and they depart , leaving the Sunday [...]

   1927, Plain Talk, page 94

comparative more appropriate · superlative most appropriate

1. Suitable or fit; proper; felicitous.

   The headmaster wondered what an appropriate measure would be to make the pupil behave better.

   3 more examples

   1798-1801, Beilby Porteus, Lecture XI delivered in the Parish Church of St. James, Westminster in its strict and appropriate meaning

   appropriate acts of divine worship

   1710, Edward Stillingfleet, Several Conferences Between a Romish Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome

   But some discussion of the complex relationship between “allohistory” and sf is appropriate here, as the genres overlap in certain ways. Classical allohistory— such as Trevelyan's "What if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo?" and Churchill's "If Lee had not won the Battle of Gettysburg" —is a rigorously consistent thought-experiment in historical causality.

   2011 February 1, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, Wesleyan University Press, →ISBN, pages 102–103

2. Suitable to the social situation or to social respect or social discreetness; socially correct; socially discreet; well-mannered; proper.

   While it is not considered appropriate for a professor to date his student, there is no such concern once the semester has ended.

   2 more examples

   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.

   With such focus from within the footballing community this week on Remembrance Sunday, there was something appropriate about Colchester being the venue for last night’s game. Troops from the garrison town formed a guard of honour for both sets of players, who emerged for the national anthem with poppies proudly stitched into their tracksuit jackets.

   2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph

3. obsoleteSet apart for a particular use or person; reserved.

   Synonyms: apt

4. Of an action or thing: morally good; positive.

   Rescuing animals is an appropriate thing to do.

5. Of an action or thing: pleasant.