Definition
An appropriator is a person or entity that makes an appropriation — that is, one who takes, sets apart, or lays claim to something for a particular use or purpose. The term carries distinct meanings depending on context:
1. WATER LAW. The primary modern legal usage. An appropriator is a person or entity that has diverted and applied water from a natural source to a beneficial use, thereby acquiring a water right under the prior appropriation doctrine. Rights are established by priority: the first appropriator in time holds the senior right and may take their full allocation before junior appropriators receive any water during shortage. The appropriator's right is defined by the quantity, source, and purpose of the original beneficial use.
2. ENGLISH ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. A spiritual corporation — typically a monastery, cathedral chapter, or similar religious body — that held the right to receive the tithes and profits of a benefice, a right originally belonging to the incumbent clergyman. This form of appropriation transferred the economic benefit of the living to the corporation, leaving a vicar to serve the parish on a stipend. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, many such rights passed to lay impropriators.
3. GENERAL USAGE. Broadly, any person who appropriates — that is, who sets aside, takes exclusive possession of, or dedicates resources (including public funds) to a specific purpose.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who appropriates something; the religious organization that owns the income of a benefice.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who appropriates; a spiritual corporation possessed of an appropriated benefice; also, an impropriator.
The common and legal definitions overlap more than they diverge, but the gap worth noting is directional: ordinary usage emphasizes the act of taking, while the legal term in its water-law context emphasizes the acquisition of a recognized, prioritized right. An appropriator in Western water law is not merely someone who has taken water — they hold a property interest with defined seniority against all other users of the same source.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
SENIOR APPROPRIATOR. One whose water right was established earlier in time. In a shortage, the senior appropriator's right is satisfied first.
JUNIOR APPROPRIATOR. One whose water right was established later. Junior rights are curtailed before senior rights during periods of insufficient supply.
ECCLESIASTICAL APPROPRIATOR. A spiritual corporation holding the profits of a benefice. Distinguished from an impropriator, who is a lay holder of the same rights — a distinction Black's 2nd edition collapses but Webster's 1913 carefully preserves.
Why It Matters in Research
The term appropriator is a reliable signal that a source is operating in one of two very different legal worlds — Western water law or English ecclesiastical history — and researchers must identify which before drawing any interpretive conclusions.
In water law research, appropriator is the central actor in the prior appropriation system that governs water allocation across most of the American West. The critical navigational point is that prior appropriation doctrine developed through state law, not federal common law, and the meaning of appropriator — including what acts establish a valid appropriation and what constitutes beneficial use — varies by state. California presents a particular trap: it operates a dual system recognizing both riparian rights and prior appropriation, which means California cases such as Lux v. Haggin (cited in Black's 2nd) treat the term differently than courts in pure appropriation states like Colorado. Researchers citing California water cases as authority in a Colorado or Nevada context may import assumptions that do not hold.
For ecclesiastical appropriator, the concept is largely extinct as an active legal matter but appears throughout English legal history, ecclesiastical records, and property disputes involving church lands. Researchers working with pre-Reformation records, dissolution-era conveyances, or English tithe law will encounter the term frequently. The distinction between appropriator (spiritual corporation) and impropriator (lay holder) matters for tracing the chain of title to former monastic properties.
In corpus searching, appropriator will appear far more often in water law materials than in any other context in the Law Mind collection. Filtering by jurisdiction (Western states) and date (post-1850 for American materials) will isolate the water law usage efficiently.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's carry both the water law and ecclesiastical definitions, which accurately reflects the term's genuine dual life. Black's 2nd adds the citation to Lux v. Haggin, a foundational California water rights case, anchoring the water law definition to real doctrine — a useful editorial addition absent from the 1st edition.
Webster's 1913 preserves the distinction between appropriator and impropriator more carefully than either edition of Black's, which tends to conflate the two in the ecclesiastical entry. For research into English church law, Webster's note that an appropriator is specifically a spiritual corporation — as opposed to the lay impropriator who succeeded many appropriators after the Reformation — is the more precise formulation.
Neither historical dictionary addresses the structural mechanics of prior appropriation (priority dates, beneficial use requirements, abandonment) that make the water law definition operationally meaningful. Researchers should treat the dictionary entries as identification tools only and move quickly to treatise and statutory sources for substantive doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
The water law meaning of appropriator is operative in prior appropriation and dual-system states, primarily in the American West. Pure riparian-rights states (most of the East) have no equivalent concept — water rights there attach to land ownership, not to acts of diversion and application. The ecclesiastical meaning is historically specific to English law and jurisdictions with inherited Anglican church structures.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia — property_122: Water Rights — Prior Appropriation Doctrine (Western States)
The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia — torts_130: Invasion of Privacy — Appropriation of Name or Likeness [note: this entry concerns a different legal use of "appropriation" — the tort of using another's identity for commercial gain — and is relevant only if the researcher is tracing the range of legal contexts in which appropriation concepts operate]