1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Property

PROPERTY, that which is peculiarly one’s own, that which belongs to or is characteristic of an individual. The Latin proprietas (formed from proprius, one’s own, possibly derived from prope, near) in post-Augustan times was extended to ownership and rights of possession. It is thus, in law, the generic term for rights of ownership and for things subject to the rights of ownership. It is “the most comprehensive of all terms which can be used, inasmuch as it is indicative and descriptive of every possible interest which the party can have” (see Langdale, M. R., in Jones v. Skinner, 1835, 5 L. J. Ch. 90). In Roman law and in modern systems of law based on it, property is divided into “movables” and “immovables”; in English law, on the other hand, the division is into personal property, including chattels real, and real property (see Personal Property and Real Property). Theatrical usage has given a specific meaning to the word, that of any article used on the stage during the performance of a play.