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proprietary

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Created or manufactured exclusively by the owner or licensee of intellectual property rights.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pruhpryuhtuhree

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

pɹəpˈɹaɪətɛɹi

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Created or manufactured exclusively by the owner or licensee of intellectual property rights, as with a patent or trade secret.

  2. Of or relating to property or ownership.

  3. Owning something; having ownership.

  4. Nonstandard and controlled by one particular organization.

  5. Privately owned.

  6. of a person

    Possessive, jealous, or territorial.

noun

  1. A proprietor or owner.

  2. The rights of a proprietor.

  3. A body of proprietors, taken collectively.

  4. A monk who had reserved goods and belongings to himself, notwithstanding his renunciation of all at the time of profession.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Created or manufactured exclusively by the owner or licensee of intellectual property rights, as with a patent or trade secret.

Used this way, proprietary is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use proprietary

  • “`Tylenol' is a proprietary drug of which `acetaminophen' is the generic form.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Nonstandard

proprietary government

Company

proprietary company

Other combinations

proprietary softwareproprietary interestproprietary informationproprietary rightproprietary technologyproprietary name

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • proprietornounPerson or profession

    Someone who owns (is legal possessor of) a business.

  • proprietynounDerived noun

    Correct or appropriate behavior.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • proprietary drugnounCompound term

    A drug that has a trade name and is protected by a patent (can be produced and sold only by the company holding the patent).

  • proprietary colonynounCompound term

    A colony given to a proprietor to govern (in 17th century).

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

adjective

Sense: created or manufactured exclusively by the owner

nonproprietaryRare

noun

Sense: proprietor or owner

nonproprietaryRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.