privileges

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of privilege.

   Senior staff retain certain privileges even after they move into advisory positions.

   The treaty stripped the nobles of the hereditary privileges they had held for centuries.

   Note

   Only the countable meanings take this plural: the separate rights, benefits and immunities held by a legislature, a nobility or a senior employee. The abstract meaning, the status of enjoying social or economic advantage, is uncountable and stays singular, so writing about that condition calls it privilege, not privileges. Two rarer plurals belong to history: papal exemptions from certain laws, and an archaic American name for stock market options.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of privilege.

   The grading scheme privileges originality over technical correctness.

   A seniority system privileges those who have served the longest.

   Note

   In current English the living sense is 'to prioritize': a method privileges one thing over another, giving it more weight. It is transitive, and over marks what loses out. The older meanings, granting someone a special right or shielding them from danger, are now archaic. The spelling is shared with the noun plural, but the verb always has a direct object after it, which tells the two apart.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2