appurtenance

[ uh-pur-tn-uhns ]

noun

1. Usually appurtenances. something associated with, accompanying, or belonging to another thing; accessory:

   A retreat to rolling green hills and idyllic lakes, complete with all the appurtenances of luxury we're used to, is a good stress cure.

2. Law. Usually appurtenances. a right or privilege, outbuilding, or other asset belonging to and passing with a principal property:

   The real estate described herein includes all improvements, fixtures, and appurtenances, if any.

3. appurtenances. apparatus; equipment:

   I dislike those workout programs that insist on tons of specialized appurtenances and instruction.

4. belonging, possession, relationship, or origin, or an affix that expresses this:

   The -i in Israeli is a suffix of appurtenance.

   The ethnic appurtenance of job applicants is private information.

appurtenance

/ əˈpɜːtɪnəns /

noun

1. a secondary or less significant thing or part
2. plural accessories or equipment
3. property law a minor right, interest, or privilege which passes when the title to the principal property is transferred

Word History and Origins

Origin of appurtenance¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English apurtenance, apertinaunce, from Anglo-French apurtenance, from Late Latin appertinentia, derivative of appertinēre “to belong to, pertain” equivalent to ap- + -tinēre; ap- ¹, pertain

Word History and Origins

Origin of appurtenance¹

C14: from Anglo-French apurtenance, from Old French apartenance, from apartenir to appertain

Example Sentences

Yet he gives Lisey little life of her own; she is an appurtenance, a helpmate, sometimes a savior to her well-known writer spouse, and a little bit of an action heroine, but without intellectual interests, or hobbies or even any sort of job of her own.

From Los Angeles Times

After a long afternoon with one of his researchers, I mentioned to Varsano that his constant emphasis on the utility of jets was at times hard to square with the tenor of a market that seems to rely so much on appurtenance and churn.

From New York Times

There were, of course, millions of men with toothbrush mustaches, but the choice by a performer or politician to keep or to discard a symbolic appurtenance is never accidental.

From The New Yorker

Oddly, I still like her, regarding her opinions as an arbitrary appurtenance that she pops on in public, like a daft hat that says "Immigrants Out" on the brim.

From The Guardian

The Herzogs' divorce becomes a middle-class appurtenance indeed: when Alexander finally leaves, the vast machinery of Ganna's institutionalised assumptions, her bourgeois will to power, cranks into action.

From The Guardian