online medical dictionary | definition of proprietary

1. In marketroid-speak, superior; implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of the company's own hardware or software designers.

2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor who can inflate service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the customer in.

(01 Jul 2002)

1. A proprietor or owner; one who has exclusive title to a thing; one who possesses, or holds the title to, a thing in his own right.

2. A body proprietors, taken collectively.

3. A monk who had reserved goods and effects to himself, notwithstanding his renunciation of all at the time of profession.

Belonging, or pertaining, to a proprietor; considered as property; owned; as, proprietary medicine. Proprietary articles, manufactured articles which some person or persons have exclusive right to make and sell.

Origin: L. Proprietarius: cf. F. Proprietaire. See Propriety, and cf. Proprietor.

(01 Mar 1998)