Proprietarian
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A proponent of proprietarianism, that is, of proprietary colonies and proprietary government in colonial America. historical
"The quakers and proprietarians together have little weight. New Jersey shows a noble ardor. Is there any thing in the air or soil of New York unfriendly to the spirit of liberty?"
- 2 A stickler for proprieties. rare
"The conversazioni are of all sorts, from the conversazioni of the rigid proprietarians, where people sit down to a kind of hopeless whist, at a soldo the point, and say nothing, to the conversazioni of the demimonde where they say any thing."
- 3 A person who owns property (a proprietor) or believes in proprietarianism, that is, that property is an absolute right. China
"The poor have been classified as the proletarians and the rich as the proprietarians on the Chinese mainland. In the Communist view all proletarians are good men and all proprietarians are bad men."
Example
More examples"The quakers and proprietarians together have little weight. New Jersey shows a noble ardor. Is there any thing in the air or soil of New York unfriendly to the spirit of liberty?"
Etymology
From proprietary + -an (or + -ian).
From propriety + -arian.
More for "proprietarian"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.