Proprietary means owned by a company and protected from copying. Proprietary software, a proprietary format, proprietary blend.
In technology it is the opposite of open, and a proprietary file format is one only its maker's program can read, which is how a company keeps customers. Of manner it means possessive, as in a proprietary air over something not yours.
1adjectiveproprietaryOwned by a company and protected from copying.
“The printer only works with the maker's own proprietary ink cartridges.”
proprietary is a quality.
Latin proprietarius comes from proprius, meaning one's own, the root of property and proper.
Latin
proprietārius
French
propriétaire
English, today
proprietary
From French propriétaire, from Latin proprietārius. by surface analysis, propriety + -ary. Compare with the Latin proprietas (“property”) and proprius (“ownership”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA