proprium
noun
proprium is spelled P-R-O-P-R-I-U-M: 8 letters. It appears about once in every 78 million words in written English, the 279,513th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, proprium means “A property that applies to all members of a species and only to them, serving to distinguish the species from other species within the same genus…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of proprium is propria.
How many letters and syllables are in proprium?
| Letters | 8: P-R-O-P-R-I-U-M |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 78 million words; the 279,513th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is proprium?
Proprium appears about once in every 78 million words in written English, the 279,513th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Forms of proprium
- propria plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does proprium mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A property that applies to all members of a species and only to them, serving to distinguish the species from other species within the same genus, yet is not part of the true definition or the essence of the species.
(So you can use a proprium to pick out a species–for example, you could say: “a human is a risible mortal animal”–but, in that case, you aren’t picking out the species by its true definition.)
- 2
Selfhood.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does proprium come from?
Borrowed from Latin proprium (“of one's own”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).