the.com/expropriation
The state taking your stuff and calling it policy instead of theft.
means The formal seizure of privately owned property by an authority, usually a government, often with some claim of compensation or public purpose attached.
from Borrowed from Latin ex- 'out, away' plus proprius 'one's own' — the same root that gives us 'proper' and 'property.' So literally, to 'un-own' something: to strip it of its proprius-ness and hand that ownership elsewhere. The word entered English via French expropriation around legal and political discourse, keeping its bureaucratic, procedural flavor — it describes the act in the dry language of law, which is exactly why it reads as a euphemism for taking.
- legal cousin
- eminent domain, but with worse PR
- compensation
- often promised, rarely generous, sometimes zero
- economic ripple
- scares off investment long after the land changes hands
- famous case
- Zimbabwe's farm seizures tanked its own currency