What does "apanage" mean?

A grant (especially by a sovereign) of land (or other source of revenue) as a birthright.

What is a synonym for "apanage"?

Common synonyms include: accompaniment, adjunct, affix, appanage, appanage, appendix.

Pronounced //ˈæpənɪd͡ʒ//.

//ˈæpənɪd͡ʒ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A grant (especially by a sovereign) of land (or other source of revenue) as a birthright. historical
"Well, prince, Genoa and Lucca are now nothing more than the apanages, than the private property of the Bonaparte family."
2
a grant (by a sovereign or a legislative body) of resources to maintain a dependent member of a ruling family wordnet
3
A perquisite that is appropriate to one's position; an accompaniment.
"For, though I don't very much want books and opera and etchings and wines and liqueurs—still, if I want them I can have them at any moment. And that sense of security is worth more than a thousand of the temperamental ecstasies and agonies that are the appanage of hard-up youth."
4
any customary and rightful perquisite appropriate to your station in life wordnet

Verb

"Well, prince, Genoa and Lucca are now nothing more than the apanages, than the private property of the Bonaparte family."

From French apanage, from Latin *appanare, adpanare (“to give bread”), from pānis (“bread”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.