What is "property"

Property \Prop"er*ty\, n.; pl. Properties. [OE. proprete, OF. propret['e] property, F. propret['e] neatness, cleanliness, propri['e]t['e] property, fr. L. proprietas. See Proper, a., and cf. Propriety.]

1. That which is proper to anything; a peculiar quality of a thing; that which is inherent in a subject, or naturally essential to it; an attribute; as, sweetness is a property of sugar.

   Property is correctly a synonym for peculiar quality; but it is frequently used as coextensive with quality in general.
   --Sir W. Hamilton.

   Note: In physical science, the properties of matter are distinguished to the three following classes: 1. Physical properties, or those which result from the relations of bodies to the physical agents, light, heat, electricity, gravitation, cohesion, adhesion, etc., and which are exhibited without a change in the composition or kind of matter acted on. They are color, luster, opacity, transparency, hardness, sonorousness, density, crystalline form, solubility, capability of osmotic diffusion, vaporization, boiling, fusion, etc.

2. Chemical properties, or those which are conditioned by affinity and composition; thus, combustion, explosion, and certain solutions are reactions occasioned by chemical properties. Chemical properties are identical when there is identity of composition and structure, and change according as the composition changes.

3. Organoleptic properties, or those forming a class which can not be included in either of the other two divisions. They manifest themselves in the contact of substances with the organs of taste, touch, and smell, or otherwise affect the living organism, as in the manner of medicines and poisons.

   2. An acquired or artificial quality; that which is given by art, or bestowed by man; as, the poem has the properties which constitute excellence.

   3. The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying, and disposing of a thing; ownership; title.

   Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood.
   --Shak.

   Shall man assume a property in man?
   --Wordsworth.

4. That to which a person has a legal title, whether in his possession or not; thing owned; an estate, whether in lands, goods, or money; as, a man of large property, or small property.

5. pl. All the adjuncts of a play except the scenery and the dresses of the actors; stage requisites.

   I will draw a bill of properties.
   --Shak.

6. Propriety; correctness. [Obs.]
   --Camden.

   Literary property. (Law) See under Literary.

   Property man, one who has charge of the ``properties'' of a theater.

Property \Prop"er*ty\, v. t.

1. To invest which properties, or qualities. [Obs.]
   --Shak.

2. To make a property of; to appropriate. [Obs.]

   They have here propertied me.
   --Shak.

c.1300, properte, "nature, quality," later "possession, thing owned" (early 14c., a sense rare before 17c.), from an Anglo-French modification of Old French propriete "individuality, peculiarity; property" (12c., Modern French propreté; see propriety), from Latin proprietatem (nominative proprietas) "ownership, a property, propriety, quality," literally "special character" (a loan-translation of Greek idioma), noun of quality from proprius "one's own, special" (see proper). For "possessions, private property" Middle English sometimes used proper goods. Hot property "sensation, a success" is from 1947 in "Billboard" stories.

n. Something that is owned. vb. 1 (context obsolete English) To invest with properties, or qualities. 2 (context obsolete English) To make a property of; to appropriate.

1. n. any area set aside for a particular purpose; "who owns this place?"; "the president was concerned about the property across from the White House" [syn: place]

2. something owned; any tangible or intangible possession that is owned by someone; "that hat is my property"; "he is a man of property"; [syn: belongings, holding, material possession]

3. a basic or essential attribute shared by all members of a class; "a study of the physical properties of atomic particles"

4. a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished; "self-confidence is not an endearing property" [syn: attribute, dimension]

5. any movable articles or objects used on the set of a play or movie; "before every scene he ran down his checklist of props" [syn: prop]

Property is the ownership of land, resources, improvements or other tangible objects, or intellectual property.

Property may also refer to:

1. redirect Property (philosophy)

In the abstract, property is that which belongs to or with something, whether as an attribute or as a component of said thing. In the context of this article, property is one or more components (rather than attributes), whether physical or incorporeal, of a person's estate; or so belonging to, as in being owned by, a person or jointly a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation or even a society. (Given such meaning, the word property is uncountable, and as such, is not described with an indefinite article or as plural.) Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property has the right to consume, alter, share, redefine, rent, mortgage, pawn, sell, exchange, transfer, give away or destroy it, or to exclude others from doing these things, as well as to perhaps abandon it; whereas regardless of the nature of the property, the owner thereof has the right to properly use it (as a durable, mean or factor, or whatever), or at the very least exclusively keep it.

In economics and political economy, there are three broad forms of property: private property, public property, and collective property (also called cooperative property).

Property that jointly belongs to more than one party may be possessed or controlled thereby in very similar or very distinct ways, whether simply or complexly, whether equally or unequally. However, there is an expectation that each party's will (rather discretion) with regard to the property be clearly defined and unconditional, so as to distinguish ownership and easement from rent. The parties might expect their wills to be unanimous, or alternately every given one of them, when no opportunity for or possibility of dispute with any other of them exists, may expect his, her, its or their own will to be sufficient and absolute.

The Restatement (First) of Property defines property as anything, tangible or intangible whereby a legal relationship between persons and the state enforces a possessory interest or legal title in that thing. This mediating relationship between individual, property and state is called a property regime.

In sociology and anthropology, property is often defined as a relationship between two or more individuals and an object, in which at least one of these individuals holds a bundle of rights over the object. The distinction between "collective property" and "private property" is regarded as a confusion since different individuals often hold differing rights over a single object.

Important widely recognized types of property include real property (the combination of land and any improvements to or on the land), personal property (physical possessions belonging to a person), private property (property owned by legal persons, business entities or individual natural persons), public property (state owned or publicly owned and available possessions) and intellectual property (exclusive rights over artistic creations, inventions, etc.), although the last is not always as widely recognized or enforced. An article of property may have physical and incorporeal parts. A title, or a right of ownership, establishes the relation between the property and other persons, assuring the owner the right to dispose of the property as the owner sees fit.

In Philosophy and mathematics, a property is a characteristic of an object; a red object is said to have the property of redness. The property may be considered a form of object in its own right, able to possess other properties. A property however differs from individual objects in that it may be instantiated, and often in more than one thing. It differs from the logical/mathematical concept of class by not having any concept of extensionality, and from the philosophical concept of class in that a property is considered to be distinct from the objects which possess it. Understanding how different individual entities (or particulars) can in some sense have some of the same properties is the basis of the problem of universals. The terms attribute and quality have similar meanings.

A property, in some object-oriented programming languages, is a special sort of class member, intermediate between a field (or data member) and a method. Properties are read and written like fields, but property reads and writes are (usually) translated to get and set method calls. The field-like syntax is said to be easier to read and write than lots of method calls, yet the interposition of method calls allows for data validation, active updating (as of GUI visuals), or read-only 'fields'. That is, properties are intermediate between member code (methods) and member data ( instance variables) of the class, and properties provide a higher level of encapsulation than public fields.

Property is a 2003 novel by Valerie Martin, and was the winner of the 2003 Orange Prize. In 2012, The Observer named Property as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

The book is set on a sugar plantation near New Orleans in 1828, and tells the story of Manon Gaudet, the wife of the plantation's owner, and Sarah, the slave Manon was given as a wedding present and who she has brought with her from the city. The story is centred on Manon and her resentment towards Sarah. Sarah is not only Manon's slave, but also her husband's unwilling mistress and victim. The private drama of the estate is played out against the backdrop of civil unrest and slave rebellion.