appropriated

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of appropriate.

   Congress appropriated billions of dollars for disaster relief.

   Critics argued that the brand had appropriated traditional patterns without credit.

   Note

   One spelling serves both the simple past (Congress appropriated the funds) and the past participle, which follows have or builds the passive (the funds were appropriated). Two quite different verbs share it. One means taking something to oneself, often as if by exclusive right. The other means setting something apart for a use, and takes to or for: appropriated for relief. The adjective appropriate, 'suitable', has no such -ed form.

2. 2
   adjective

   Set aside or reserved for a particular, specified purpose.

   Lawmakers reviewed how the appropriated revenue would be distributed across districts.

   The appropriated balance could not be transferred to any other account.

   Similarallocated, reserved, designated

   Oppositeunappropriated, unallocated, unassigned

   Note

   The verb's budgeting sense, setting something apart for a particular use, hardens here into a label placed before a noun: appropriated funds, appropriated revenue, an appropriated balance. It does not grade. Money is appropriated or it is not, so more appropriated is not idiomatic. Read it as 'earmarked', and keep it apart from the 'taken for oneself' meaning that the past-tense verb can carry.

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