privileged

1. 1
   adjective

   Enjoying special rights, advantages, or opportunities not available to most other people.

   He came from a privileged background and never had to worry about money.

   A privileged elite controlled most of the country's wealth.

   Similaradvantaged, affluent, wealthy, favored

   Oppositeunderprivileged, disadvantaged, deprived

   Note

   Advantage can be narrow as well as social. S. R. Crockett, in A Cry Across the Black Water (1895), describes a pampered youngest daughter who had grown "pettishly privileged in speech." She was allowed liberties of tongue that the rest of the household lacked. A phrase with in names the respect in which the license holds. The adjective also grades freely (more privileged, most privileged), which lets it measure advantage as well as name it.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of privilege.

   The reform privileged urban districts at the expense of rural ones.

   Wealthy donors were privileged with early access to the event.

   Note

   The verb behind the adjective has two lives. Its older sense, to grant someone a special right or exemption, is now archaic. The living sense is to favor or prioritize, so a reform can have privileged one group over another. With have it forms perfects, and with be it forms passives. The passive is where it shades into the adjective of advantage: a class privileged by law is also simply a privileged class.

3. 3
   adjective

   Protected by law from disclosure, so that it cannot be demanded as evidence in legal proceedings.

   The court ruled that the conversation was privileged and excluded it from evidence.

   Privileged communications between a client and an attorney stay confidential.

   Similarconfidential, protected

   Note

   Law turns the word from people to information. Here what is privileged is a conversation, a document or a communication. It is shielded from compelled disclosure because it falls under a recognized protection, such as attorney-client or doctor-patient confidentiality. Unlike the sense of social advantage, it carries no hint of favor. Calling a letter privileged is a procedural claim about evidence, not a judgment about fairness.

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