Emily Dickinson Lexicon

AP-PRO'PRI-ATE, v.t. [Fr. approprier, of L. ad and proprius, private, peculiar. See Proper.]

1. To set apart for, or assign to a particular use, in exclusion of all other uses; as, a spot of ground is appropriated for a garden.
2. To take to one's self in exclusion of others; to claim or use as by an exclusive right; as, let no man appropriate the use of a common benefit.
3. To make peculiar; as, to appropriate names to ideas. – Locke.
4. To sever an ecclesiastical benefice, and annex it to a spiritual corporation, sole or aggregate, being the patron of the living. – Blackstone.