PROPRIETOR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does proprietor mean? 

• PROPRIETOR (noun)
  The noun PROPRIETOR has 1 sense:

1. (law) someone who owns (is legal possessor of) a business

  Familiarity information: PROPRIETOR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROPRIETOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(law) someone who owns (is legal possessor of) a business

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

owner; proprietor

Context example:

he is the owner of a chain of restaurants

Hypernyms ("proprietor" is a kind of...):

businessman; man of affairs (a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive))

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "proprietor"):

bookseller (the proprietor of a bookstore)

lease giver; lessor (someone who grants a lease)

letter (owner who lets another person use something (housing usually) for hire)

patron (the proprietor of an inn)

proprietress (a woman proprietor)

newspaper publisher; publisher (the proprietor of a newspaper)

renter (an owner of property who receives payment for its use by another person)

restauranter; restaurateur (the proprietor of a restaurant)

saloon keeper (the proprietor of a saloon)

timberman (an owner or manager of a company that is engaged in lumbering)

Derivation:

proprietary (protected by trademark or patent or copyright; made or produced or distributed by one having exclusive rights)

proprietorship (an unincorporated business owned by a single person who is responsible for its liabilities and entitled to its profits)

 Context examples 

I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant evidences of wealth in the proprietor.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Try one of the proprietor’s cigars.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a J.P. and a landed proprietor.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his duplicate key.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The largest landed proprietor in that part is a Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia and returned some years ago to the old country.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That Mr. Creakle, the proprietor, was down by the sea-side with Mrs. and Miss Creakle; and that I was sent in holiday-time as a punishment for my misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we went along.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

When this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr. Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much gratification; but when Mrs. Phillips understood from him what Rosings was, and who was its proprietor—when she had listened to the description of only one of Lady Catherine's drawing-rooms, and found that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper's room.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

It had no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up by the present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing eyes.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

A party was formed this evening for going on the following day to see a very fine place about twelve miles from Barton, belonging to a brother-in-law of Colonel Brandon, without whose interest it could not be seen, as the proprietor, who was then abroad, had left strict orders on that head.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

This was so material an amendment of his late expectations that it greatly contributed to smooth the descent of his pride; and by no means without its effect was the private intelligence, which he was at some pains to procure, that the Fullerton estate, being entirely at the disposal of its present proprietor, was consequently open to every greedy speculation.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)