expropriation

Noun

expropriation (countable and uncountable, plural expropriations)

1. The act of expropriating; the surrender of a claim to private property without material compensation; the act of depriving oneself of private propriety rights.
   • The soul of man then is capable of a state of much peace and equanimity, in the exterior bands and agitations; but this capacity is rather an effect of the expropriation of our reason, then a vertue resulting from her single capacity.c. 1648, Walter Montagu, Devout Essaies.
   • In later years he came to regard this prospect as highly probable; he did not deduce that there was no hope for socialism, but he inclined to the view that socialism, by means of peaceful expropriation, could take over the machinery of capitalist planning almost ready-made.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in...