To appropriate is to set something apart for a specific use. The word usually goes along with funds in the phrase appropriate funds. A second definition is to take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, but this sense of appropriate is rarely used. To expropriate is to deprive of possession, especially using eminent domain or legal action.
Examples
These writers use the verb appropriate well:
The Columbia City Council yesterday approved a measure to appropriate funds that could be used to provide bonuses to city employees. [Columbia Daily Tribune]
Rescinding the billions appropriated to Obamacare would help reach the GOP’s well-publicized pledge to cut spending by $100 billion … [Heritage Foundation]
Known for his unique style of appropriating popular-culture imagery and mass-produced objects to create his own artwork, Jeff Koons made headlines a few years ago … [Intellectual Property Brief]
And these writers use expropriate well:
… Chà¡vez has suggested expropriating “bourgeois” golf courses to build housing projects on them instead. [Financial Times]
The bill effectively gives the government the right to expropriate land at a price . . . [Reuters]
Wall Street has wiped $5 billion off Apache’s market value since the riots began amid fears that a new government could expropriate their land concessions. [Fortune]
