PROPERTY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Property

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/prˈɑpərti/ Listen

noun

Property n. (pl. properties)

That which is proper to anything; a peculiar quality of a thing; that which is inherent in a subject, or naturally essential to it; an attribute; as, sweetness is a property of sugar. "Property is correctly a synonym for peculiar quality; but it is frequently used as coextensive with quality in general." Note: In physical science, the properties of matter are distinguished to the three following classes: 1. Physical properties, or those which result from the relations of bodies to the physical agents, light, heat, electricity, gravitation, cohesion, adhesion, etc., and which are exhibited without a change in the composition or kind of matter acted on. They are color, luster, opacity, transparency, hardness, sonorousness, density, crystalline form, solubility, capability of osmotic diffusion, vaporization, boiling, fusion, etc. 2. Chemical properties, or those which are conditioned by affinity and composition; thus, combustion, explosion, and certain solutions are reactions occasioned by chemical properties. Chemical properties are identical when there is identity of composition and structure, and change according as the composition changes. 3. Organoleptic properties, or those forming a class which can not be included in either of the other two divisions. They manifest themselves in the contact of substances with the organs of taste, touch, and smell, or otherwise affect the living organism, as in the manner of medicines and poisons.

An acquired or artificial quality; that which is given by art, or bestowed by man; as, the poem has the properties which constitute excellence.

The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying, and disposing of a thing; ownership; title. "Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood." "Shall man assume a property in man?"

That to which a person has a legal title, whether in his possession or not; thing owned; an estate, whether in lands, goods, or money; as, a man of large property, or small property.

pl. All the adjuncts of a play except the scenery and the dresses of the actors; stage requisites. "I will draw a bill of properties."

Propriety; correctness. (Obs.)

Literary property. (Law) See under Literary.

Property man, one who has charge of the "properties" of a theater.

verb

Property v. t.

To invest which properties, or qualities. (Obs.)

To make a property of; to appropriate. (Obs.) "They have here propertied me."

See images of 'Property'

Etymology of 'Property'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Property" Quotes from Famous Books

... at reading faces, he might see that remarks about him were considered quite too much her own personal property to be repeated to anybody in the world but himself. Wych Hazel sat silent, stirring ...

— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... all he could say was, that they had held it 'for many grandfathers back, longer than anyone knew.' The salary was only L10 a-year till his father's time, when it was raised to L20; yet I should suppose that the office is a rather productive one, as the family have accumulated some property. ...

— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... the bitter strife aroused by the breaking of the Concordat and the seizure of the property of the Church was slowly crystallizing into an icy hatred, the worst in the world, the hatred of a man who has been robbed. The Church Separation Law may have been right in theory, and with the liberal tendencies of the reformers one may have every sympathy, but the fact remains that the sale ...

— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... Also to ask him to make us good. That, too, must be a part of worshipping a good God. For the very property of goodness is, that it wishes to make others good. And if God be good, he must wish to make ...

— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... really quite strangely, while he stood there, as if she had told him where he could go and get it. With which, none the less, it was apparently where he wouldn't find her—and what was there, after all, of nutritive in the image of Newton Winch? He made up his mind in a moment that it owed that property, which the pretty girl had somehow made imputable, to the fact of its simply being just then the one image of anything known to him that the terrible place had to offer. Nothing, he a minute later reflected, could ...

— The Finer Grain • Henry James

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