Privileging

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The action of bestowing preferential treatment or advantages upon particular individuals or groups
2. The process of providing certain rights or benefits to selected parties while excluding others
3. The process of giving certain people or groups favored status that others do not receive

Etymology: The Latin "prīvilēgium" was a legal term for an ordinance aimed at one particular person, not a general law. It combined "prīvus," meaning "private" or "single," with "lēx," meaning "law," so a privilege was literally a law made for one individual. That sense of a law singling someone out stayed close to the surface as the word passed through Old French and Anglo-Norman into Middle English, where it kept its focus on special rights granted to particular people. Old English had its own word for this idea, "frēols," meaning privilege or immunity, but Middle English borrowed the Romance term and it displaced the native one. The verb "privilege," and so "privileging," grew out of that noun, carrying the same core notion: setting some people apart for benefits that others do not receive.

Synonyms: favoring, advantaging, empowering, enabling, granting

Antonyms: disadvantaging, marginalizing, oppressing, restricting, limiting