Impropriated

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Used or applied in a way that is not proper, suitable, or fitting
2. Employed or handled in an incorrect or unsuitable manner
3. Deployed with a lack of appropriateness or correctness in context

Etymology: "Impropriated" is the past tense and past participle of "impropriate", so its story is really the story of that verb. The verb comes from Medieval Latin "impropriare", meaning "to take as one's own, appropriate", built from Latin "in-" and "proprius", "one's own". The English sense that survives most clearly, to take something and make it one's own, is the one the medieval root carries, and it is worth noticing how far that has drifted from the sense the current definition gives: a thing taken for oneself is now a thing wrongly handled. Over time the verb took on a specialised meaning in English church law. To impropriate a church or its revenues was to transfer them to a lay person or a corporation, such as a monastery, that could collect the income while the parish was left with a vicar. That legal sense explains why the word looks so ecclesiastical, even though the everyday usage that is now common is a plain sense of misapplication.

Synonyms: seized, taken, usurped, annexed, claimed

Antonyms: returned, released, restored, surrendered, given