Proprietary
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
n. Owner. Originally, a mere equivalent to proprietor; but it has been much used to denote proprietors of estates under large royal grants, or of great colonial estates. Grantees on whom great tracts of land in new countries have been conferred with partial powers of government, as a means of promoting emigration to and colonization of the lands, have been called proprietaries. In ecclesiastical law, it was chiefly used for him who had the fruits of a benefice to himself, his heirs and successors, as abbots and priors had to them and their successors, l^omlins.