prop·er·ty

(prŏp′ər-tē)

n. pl. prop·er·ties

a. Something owned; a possession.

b. A piece of real estate: has a swimming pool on the property.

c. Something tangible or intangible to which its owner has legal title: properties such as copyrights and trademarks.

d. Something tangible or intangible, such as a claim or a right, in which a person has a legally cognizable, compensable interest.

e. Possessions considered as a group: moved with all his property.

2. A theatrical prop.

3. An attribute, characteristic, or quality: a compound with anti-inflammatory properties. See Synonyms at quality.

[Middle English proprete, properte, from Anglo-Norman properte and Old French proprete, alterations (influenced by Anglo-Norman Old French propre, one's own) of Old French propriete, from Latin proprietās, specific character (of a person or thing), ownership, property (formed on the model of Greek idiotēs, specific character, from idios, one's own), from Latin proprius, one's own; see per in Indo-European roots.]

prop′er·ty·less adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

propertyless

(ˈprɒpətɪlɪs)

adj

without property

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

propertyless - of those who work for wages especially manual or industrial laborers; "party of the propertyless proletariat"- G.B.Shaw

working-class, blue-collar, wage-earning

low-class, lower-class - occupying the lowest socioeconomic position in a society

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

As competitive "market forces" established themselves, less productive farmers went to the wall, and together with direct coercive intervention to evict them or to extinguish their customary rights, this accelerated the polarization of English rural society into large landowners and a growing propertyless multitude.

From opportunity to imperative: the history of the market

Under capitalism, as is well known, the labor "free," largely propertyless workers on behalf of private owners of the means of production superseded both serfdom and slavery as well as the communal peasant production of tributary states.

"International cooperation - a way out?": a comment

According to Paul Sweezy, capitalism is not defined exclusively by the "capital-labor relation.' For such a definition it is necessary to add that "capital exists not as a single entity facing a propertyless working class but as many capitals organized separately and acting independently of one another.'

The specificity of Soviet capitalism

According to this view, not only is the regime in power not the proletariat organized as the ruling class; it does not in any meaningful sense represent the proletariat (which continues to be composed of propertyless wage-earners); nor is there anything in the logic of state ownership of the means of production that obliges the regime to act in the long-run interest of the proletariat.

After capitalism - what?

* Jennifer Jones, 39, of Pana, was assessed $581.92 for the July 29 offense of criminal damage to propertyless than $500 value.

Cases conclude

253-254) is not a human actor but a single "definite function" that is embodied in "an imaginary figure" who is "propertyless" and whose only function is to bear risk.

ARE OWNERSHIP RENT AND PURE PROFIT SEPARATE RETURNS TO THE ENTREPRENEUR?

Propertyless distrainments must be terminated and an adequate mechanism for that must be found, Justice Minister Gaacutebor Gaacutel (Most-Hiacuted) told The Slovak Spectator.Executors directly affected by the amnesty consider this step hazardous for the legal awareness of the responsible citizen.

Distrainment amnesty stays in plans

(14) Those eventually most receptive to George's ideas were those who stood to benefit most: propertyless urban workers who would be freed of the burden of taxation.

Chapter 2: THE GENESIS OF HOME RULE IN CALIFORNIA

In 1851, however, with the enactment of universal manhood suffrage in the new constitution, the debate over the deportation of free blacks began again as whites recognized the implications of extending suffrage to the propertyless.

Family Bonds: Free Blacks and Re-enslavement Law in Antebellum Virginia

What should be noted is that one of the alibis for this accumulation was disease-control of the national body, and during its process the propertyless vagrants were stigmatized as intermediate hosts of epidemic contagion.

The plague and immunity in Othello