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| n. 1. a. A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste. See Synonyms at right. b. Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others. 2. The principle of granting and maintaining a special right or immunity: a society based on privilege. 3. a. Protection from being forced to disclose confidential communications in certain relationships, as between attorney and client, physician and patient, or priest and confessor. b. Protection from being sued for libel or slander for making otherwise actionable statements in a context or forum where open and candid expression is deemed desirable for reasons of public policy. 4. An option to buy or sell a stock, including put, call, spread, and straddle. tr.v. priv·i·leged, priv·i·leg·ing, priv·i·leg·es 1. To grant a privilege to. 2. To free or exempt. 3. To assign greater importance or priority to: “A Harvard Law grad who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, he is steeped in a tradition that privileges the Bill of Rights over the crude or arbitrary exercise of power” (Evan Thomas). [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin prīvilēgium, a law affecting one person : prīvus, single, alone; see per1 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots + lēx, lēg-, law; see leg- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
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