Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PRO-PRI'E-TA-RY, n. [Fr. proprietaire, from proprieté.]

1. A proprietor or owner; one who has the exclusive title to a thing; one who possesses or holds the title to a thing in his own right. The grantees of Pennsylvania and Maryland and their heirs were called the proprietaries of those provinces.
2. In monasteries, such monks were called proprietaries, as had reserved goods and effects to themselves, notwithstanding their renunciation of all at the time of their profession. – Encyc.