apanage

/ˈæpənɪd͡ʒ/

Etymology

From French apanage, from Latin *appanare, adpanare (“to give bread”), from pānis (“bread”).

Why this word is great

APANAGE — [Noun] A grant, especially by a sovereign, of land or other source of revenue as a birthright, typically to a younger member of a royal or noble family. From French apanage, from Latin appanare, adpanare ("to give bread"), from pānis ("bread"). Unlike "inheritance" (which flows to primary heirs) or "perquisite" (a casual bonus of office), an apanage is both consolation and containment—a sovereign’s way of pacifying spare children with parcels of power too small to threaten the throne. It is the younger son riding out to administer his meager duchy, the princess receiving a handful of villages to fund her quiet exile, the careful calculus of monarchy ensuring that even those born to excess must still be fed crumbs. Apanage is the quiet admission that dynasties, like families, survive by dividing what cannot be shared.

noun

  1. A grant (especially by a sovereign) of land (or other source of revenue) as a birthright.“Well, prince, Genoa and Lucca are now nothing more than the apanages, than the private property of the Bonaparte family.”
  2. A perquisite that is appropriate to one's position; an accompaniment.“For, though I don't very much want books and opera and etchings and wines and liqueurs—still, if I want them I can have them at any moment. And that sense of security is worth more than a thousand of the temperamental ecstasies and agonies that are the appanage of hard-up youth.”

verb

  1. To confer an apanage upon.