APPERTAIN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does appertain mean? 

• APPERTAIN (verb)
  The verb APPERTAIN has 1 sense:

1. be a part or attribute of

  Familiarity information: APPERTAIN used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• APPERTAIN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they appertain    ... he / she / it appertains   
Past simple: appertained   
Past participle: appertained   
-ing form: appertaining   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be a part or attribute of

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

appertain; pertain

Hypernyms (to "appertain" is one way to...):

belong; belong to (be a part or adjunct)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s to somebody

Derivation:

appurtenance (a supplementary component that improves capability)

appurtenant (furnishing added support)

 Context examples 

He asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to Dora and her aunts.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Mr. Yates had staid to see the destruction of every theatrical preparation at Mansfield, the removal of everything appertaining to the play: he left the house in all the soberness of its general character; and Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing him out of it, to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme, and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting between the parties?

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

My employer, ma'am—Mr. Heep—once did me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

On one side of this line, said Mr. Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, is the whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on a certain afternoon of his own appointing, which was now come, but that Mrs. Crupp had resigned everything appertaining to her office (the salary excepted) until Peggotty should cease to present herself.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His inventory includes, not only the chattels and effects of every description belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)