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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Appanage

Appanage \Ap"pa*nage\, n. [F. apanage, fr. OF. apaner to nourish, support, fr. LL. apanare to furnish with bread, to provision; L. ad + pains bread.]

  1. The portion of land assigned by a sovereign prince for the subsistence of his younger sons.

  2. A dependency; a dependent territory.

  3. That which belongs to one by custom or right; a natural adjunct or accompaniment. ``Wealth . . . the appanage of wit.''
    --Swift.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
appanage

c.1600, from French apanage (13c.), from apaner "to endow with means of subsistence," from Medieval Latin appanare "equip with bread," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + panis "bread" (see food). Originally, provisions made for younger children of royalty. The double -p- restored in French 15c.-16c., in English 17c.

Wiktionary
appanage

n. 1 A grant (especially by a sovereign) of land (or other source of revenue) as a birthright 2 A perquisite that is appropriate to one's position

WordNet
appanage
  1. n. any customary and rightful perquisite appropriate to your station in life; "for thousands of years the chair was an appanage of state and dignity rather than an article of ordinary use" [syn: apanage]

  2. a grant (by a sovereign or a legislative body) of resources to maintain a dependent member of a ruling family; "bishoprics were received as appanages for the younger sons of great families" [syn: apanage]

Wikipedia
Appanage

An appanage or apanage (pronounced ) or is the grant of an estate, title, office, or other thing of value to a younger male child of a sovereign, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture. It was common in much of Europe.

The system of appanage greatly influenced the territorial construction of France and the German states, and explains why many of the former provinces of France had coats of arms which were modified versions of the king's arms.

Usage examples of "appanage".

His reason voluntarily consigned her to the aristocracy as a natural appanage: but he did amorously wish that Fortune had made a lord of him.

Founded in the Twelfth Century, and, during the Piast period, the seat of the appanaged Dukes of Masovia, Warszawa, replaced Cracow as the residence of the Polish kings and therefore as the capital of Poland, on the election of Sigismund III.

That fractious giant who would only go to the Foreign Office, had, in fact, gone to some sphere of much less important duty, and Sidonia, in spite of the whispered dislike of an illustrious personage, opened the campaign with all the full appanages of a giant of the highest standing.

Shibli Bagarag peered yet more earnestly through the glass eye, and in the centre of the procession, clad gorgeously in silks and stuffs, woven with gold and gems, a crown upon his head, and the appanages of supremacy and majesty about him, was Shagpat.

He was greedy after the little appanages of power, taking from others who loved them as well as he did privileges with which he might have dispensed.

I am conscious that my beautiful nun sinned against womanly reserve and modesty, the two most beautiful appanages of the fair sex, but if that unique, or at least rare, woman was guilty of an eccentricity which I then thought a virtue, she was at all events exempt from that fearful venom called jealousy--an unhappy passion which devours the miserable being who is labouring under it, and destroys the love that gave it birth.

She was anxious to make some allusion to Arthur Fletcher, but it was difficult to travel on that Silverbridge ground, as Lopez had been her chosen candidate when she still wished to claim the borough as an appanage of the Palliser family.

A bishop with a regular salary, and no appanage of land and land-bailiffs, is only half a bishop.

But little was got by this move, for an answering placard explained to the unfortunate county how deep would be its shame, if it allowed itself to became the appanage of any peer, but more especially of a peer who was known to be the most immoral lord that ever disgraced the benches of the Upper House.

But Lord Dennis had risen, too, having lost all the appanage and manner of old age.

As if loveliness were not the special prerogative of woman -- her legitimate appanage and heritage!

The result of this recrudescence of affection was the appearance of two pontifical bulls, converting the towns of Nepi and Sermoneta into duchies: one was bestowed on Gian Bargia, an illegitimate child of the pope, who was not the son of either of his mistresses, Rosa Vanozza or Giulia Farnese, the other an Don Roderigo of Aragon, son of Lucrezia and Alfonso: the lands of the Colonna were in appanage to the two duchies.

Adams had long ago hoisted the British flag and constituted his island an appanage of the British crown.