property

Pluralproperties

Formsproperties, propertying, propertied

1. 1
   land and buildingsnouncountable or uncountable

   A piece of land or real estate, often including any buildings on it.

   The property stretches from the road down to the river.

   The old farmhouse sits at the far end of a hilly forty-acre property.

   UsageCount it as one place: a property, two properties. Things stand or happen on the property.

   Similarland, parcel, estate

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Anything that is owned by a person or group.

   The will divided his property among three children.

   Soldiers were ordered not to damage civilian property.

   UsageMost often with no a: private property, stolen property, damage to property.

   Similarpossessions, belongings, assets, holdings, effects

   Note

   Ownership is built into the word: it comes through Old French propreté and Middle English propertee from Latin proprius, "one's own." Three compounds are common: real property for land and buildings, personal property for everything else a person owns, and intellectual property for rights over creations and inventions.

3. 3
   qualitynouncountable

   A quality or characteristic that something has, often one shared by everything of its kind, as in 'the properties of metals'.

   Transparency is a notable property of clean glass.

   He studied the strange property that made the material glow.

   UsageOften plural: the properties of a material. Also the property of + -ing, as in the property of conducting heat.

   Similarattribute

   Note

   The quality sense has Latin behind it too: proprietās could mean a peculiarity, one's peculiar nature, something that is one's own in character rather than in possession.

4. 4
   nounBritishuncountable

   Real estate, or the business of buying and selling houses and land.

   After university she went into property, selling flats across London.

   The crash hit everyone working in property that year.

   UsageMost often with no article: work in property, go into property, invest in property.

5. 5
   right to ownnoununcountable

   Ownership itself as a legal right, rather than the thing owned; the sole right to have and use something, benefit from it, and sell or otherwise dispose of it.

   Copyright grants the author property in the work they create.

   The deed transferred property in the house to the new owners.

   UsageUsed with in: someone has property in a thing, or property in it passes to a buyer.

   Similarownership, title, proprietorship

   Note

   Here the word names a right rather than a thing, and the Latin already did the same: proprietās meant the right or fact of possession as well as the possession itself. Keep it apart from the thing owned. A house is property in that sense, while having property in a house means holding the exclusive right to possess, enjoy and dispose of it. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • Latin proprietās meant the right or fact of possession as well as the possession itself. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   programmingnouncountable

   A read-only or editable parameter tied to an application, component, or class, especially in object-oriented programming, where it may wrap an underlying variable.

   Like a dial on a control panel that both shows a value and lets you adjust it, while hiding the wiring behind it.

   The text box exposes a read-only property that returns the current length of the input.

   Developers can bind the slider's value to a property on the view model.

   Note

   Programmers use the word for a named setting on a component, something you read or set to a value, as in setting a debugging property to "verbose." In object-oriented code it looks to the caller like a plain variable while often standing in front of one. That arrangement lets the class decide what happens when the value is read or changed. A read-only property can be inspected but not set. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • A property often wraps an underlying variable, but it can compute its value without a backing variable. learn.microsoft.com
7. 7
   story to adaptnounUScountable

   A book, script, film, play, or similar creative work, or a franchise based on one, owned or bought as a commercial asset to be produced or developed.

   The producer optioned the property before anyone else read it.

   Every studio wanted the property after the book topped the bestseller list.

   UsageOften in a hot property: a book or show that many studios want to buy.

   Note

   An American industry word that treats a story as something owned. A novel or screenplay becomes a property once it is on the market or bought for production. The word looks at the work as an asset to be traded, not as writing to be read, which carries the idea of the thing owned over to stories. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • The commercial creative-work sense is identified as American usage. en.wiktionary.org

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