# proprietary

Pronunciation: US say "pruh-PRY-uh-ter-ee" /pɹəˈpɹaɪ.əˌtɛɹ.i/; say "pruh-PRY-uh-tuh-ree" UK /pɹəˈpɹaɪ.ə.tə.ɹi/, AUS /pɹəˈpɹɑɪ.ə.tə.ɹi/

## Adjective

1. Made only by the owner or licensee of the intellectual property rights in it, such as a patent or trade secret.
   - Simple: Made only by the company that owns the legal right to it, such as a secret recipe or a patent.
   - _The firm guards its proprietary formula as closely as any state secret._
   - _Cheaper generic versions went on sale as soon as the proprietary drug lost its patent._
2. Not following a public standard, and controlled by a single organization.
   - Simple: Not following the usual shared rules, and controlled by one company.
   - _The camera saves images in a proprietary format that only the maker's own software can read._
   - _Many web developers avoided the browser's proprietary features and stuck to the published standards._
3. Relating to property or to the ownership of something.
   - Simple: Having to do with owning things.
   - _The two families went to court over proprietary rights to the shoreline._
   - _The lawyer explained the proprietary interest each partner held in the business._
4. Behaving as though something or someone is one's own and guarding it jealously.
   - Simple: Acting as if something or someone belongs only to you.
   - _The head chef had grown proprietary about the kitchen and snapped at anyone who touched his knives._
   - _She was oddly proprietary about her younger brother, questioning every girl he dated._
5. Owned privately rather than publicly.
   - Simple: Owned by a person or company, not by everyone.
   - _She enrolled at a proprietary college that charged far more than the state university._
   - _Only hotel guests may fish in the proprietary lake behind the main building._
6. Owning property; holding ownership of something.
   - Simple: Owning something, such as land or a business.
   - _Taxes fell lightly on the proprietary classes and heavily on their tenants._
   - _The proprietary partners kept control of the firm, while the junior staff had no say._

## Noun

7. A person who owns something, especially property or a business.
   - Simple: A person who owns something.
   - _The colony's proprietary named the governor and collected rents from the settlers._
   - _As sole proprietary of the newspaper, she answered to no board._
8. In intelligence work, a genuine, lawfully operating company that also secretly serves as cover for spying.
   - Simple: A real business that is also secretly used to hide spying.
   - _The agency set up a string of proprietaries, from a travel agency to a charter airline, to move people and money quietly._
   - _Because the proprietary paid its taxes and its staff like any other firm, few people suspected it._
9. The rights held by a proprietor over what is owned.
   - Simple: The rights that an owner has over the thing they own.
   - _The charter granted the duke full proprietary of the colony, including the right to collect rents._
   - _Disputes over the proprietary of the fishing grounds dragged on for decades._
10. Proprietors considered together as a group.
   - Simple: All the owners of something, thought of as one group.
   - _The landed proprietary of the region resisted every attempt at land reform._
   - _Shopkeepers complained that the town council spoke only for the proprietary and never for the tenants._
11. A monk who kept goods and belongings for himself despite having renounced all possessions when he took his vows.
   - Simple: A monk who kept things for himself after promising to give up everything he owned.
   - _The visiting bishop found three proprietaries in the abbey and ordered their goods given to the poor._
   - _The abbot treated a proprietary as a breaker of his vows and barred him from the chapter._

## Origin

From French propriétaire, from Latin proprietārius; by surface analysis, propriety + -ary. Compare Latin proprietas ("property") and proprius.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/proprietary (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).