appurtenance

English

Alternative forms

• appertainance (dated)
• appurtenaunce (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English appurtenaunce, from Anglo-Norman apurtenance and Old French apartenance, from apartenir, from Latin appertineō (“I belong, I appertain”). Equivalent to appertain +‎ -ance. More at appertain.

Pronunciation

• (Northern California, US)

  (file)

Noun

appurtenance (plural appurtenances)

1. That which appertains; an appendage to something else; an addition.
   • 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “[Velay.] .”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, OCLC 5979975, page 17:

     Indeed, that was as it should be; for she was only an appurtenance of my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four castors.

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], OCLC 13623666, phase the first (The Maiden), page 36:

     The youngsters, not immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable appurtenances than otherwise; the incidents of daily life were not without humorousness and jollity in their aspect there.

2. (in the plural) Equipment used for some specific task; gear.
   • 2013 July 6, Steven Poole, “Is our love of nature writing bourgeois escapism?”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     In the case of the urban consumer of nature writing, of course, the mud is to be hosed off one's mental Range Rover immediately one lifts one's eyes from the page and gives silent thanks for the civilised appurtenances of hot yoga and flat whites.

   • 2014 August 2, Teddy Wayne, “A Parchment on Millennials”, in The New York Times‎^[2], ISSN 0362-4331:

     These “millennials” are, without a doubt, the most narcissistic and hopeless cohort I have witnessed in my 35 long years on this stationary planet. Consider, first, their absurd sartorial appurtenances, such as leggings sewn with skinny girths.

3. (law) Minor property, such as an outhouse, that passes with the main property when it is sold.

   Synonym: contenement

4. (grammar) A modifier that is appended or prepended to another word to coin a new word that expresses belonging.
5. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) The thing to which another pertains.

Related terms

• appertain

Translations

appendage added to something else

• Finnish: liite (fi), lisäosa (fi)

• Romanian: apendice (ro) n, anexă (ro) f
• Serbo-Croatian: prinadležnost (sh) f

equipment for some specific task

• Finnish: apuväline (fi)
• German: Rüstzeug (de) n, Ausrüstung (de) f

• Russian: снаряжение (ru) n (snarjaženije)
• Serbo-Croatian: pribor (sh) m
• Spanish: aparejos (es) m pl, pertrechos (es) m pl

thing to which another pertains

• Serbo-Croatian: pripadnost (sh), prinadležnost (sh)

(law) minor property that passes with the main property

• German: Zubehör (de) n

(language) modifier appended or prepended to another word to express belonging