Emily Dickinson Lexicon

AP-PRO-PRI-A'TION, n.

1. The act of sequestering, or assigning to a particular use or person, in exclusion of all others; application to a special use or purpose; as, of a piece of ground, for a park; of a right, to one's self; or of words, to ideas.
2. In law, the severing or sequestering of a benefice to the perpetual use of a spiritual corporation, sole or aggregate, being the patron of the living. For this purpose must be obtained the king's license, the consent of the bishop and of the patron. When the appropriation is thus made, the appropriator and his successors become perpetual parsons of the church, and must sue and be sued in that name. – Eng. Law. Blackstone.