proprietor

UK/pɹəˈpɹaɪətɚ/US/pɹəˈpɹaɪətɚ/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,756 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: proprietors

A proprietor is the owner of a business. The proprietor of the hotel, a newspaper proprietor, sole proprietor.

Newspaper proprietor is the standard phrase, and the influence of the person holding that job over what appears is one of the standing questions about a free press. The word is more formal than owner and appears above shop doors for that reason.

Definitions of proprietor

1nounproprietorThe owner of a business.B2+
“The proprietor of the hotel welcomed us personally at the door.”

proprietor is an owner.

Where it comes from

From proprietary, from Latin proprietas, ownership, from proprius, one's own. Property is a relative.

Latin
proprietārius
French
propriétaire
English
proprietary
English, today
proprietor

Probably from proprietary + or. proprietary comes 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

Practise this word

proprietor in the wild

Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore was an English politician and lawyer who was the first proprietor of Maryland.
Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore
The editor-in-chief is commonly the link between the publisher or proprietor and the editorial staff.
Editor-in-chief
Sole proprietors may use a trade name or business name other than their legal name.
Sole proprietorship
A lord proprietor is a person granted a royal charter for the establishment and government of an English colony in the 17th century.
Lord proprietor
The sole proprietor of this estate is Bodega Mustiguillo Archived 2015-07-03 at the Wayback Machine.
El Terrerazo

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the propriétaire family

proprietor proprietary

proprietor — used about once every 2,837 pages · #7,756 · point at the bar for the others

propriety

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