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(philosophy) 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.
Abraham Stone, Humanities 116: Philosophical Perspectives on the Humanities, people.ucsc.edu:
(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.)
Man of himself, so far as he is under the influence of his proprium, is worse than the brutes. If man should be led by his own proprium, he could not possibly be saved.
proprium in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
(Roman Catholicism)proper(part of the Christian liturgy that varies according to the date, either representing an observance within the liturgical year, or of a particular saint or significant event)
“proprium”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2024