prerogative
noun
Did you know?
In ancient Rome, voting at legal assemblies was done by group, with the majority in a group determining the vote. The group chosen to vote first on an issue was called the praerogātīva, a word rooted in Latin rogāre, “to ask; to ask an assembly for a decision.” When English adopted prerogative from Latin, via Anglo-French, in the 15th century, it took only the idea of the privilege the ancient Roman voting group enjoyed; the English word referred then, as it also does now, to an exclusive or special right, power, or privilege. Often such a prerogative is tied to an office, official body, or nation, but as Bobby Brown reminded us in his 1988 song “My Prerogative,” the right to live as you like can also be referred to as a prerogative.
Examples of prerogative in a Sentence
Thomas M. Disch, Atlantic, February 1992
More important than any of this, he offered himself as an incarnation of constitutional propriety so that, temperamentally stubborn, he was careful never to exceed the limits of a prerogative overexploited by the later Stuarts.
—Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, 1988
The secularization of the Presidency is indispensable for the reassertion of congressional and popular prerogative.
—Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History, 1986
If you'd rather sell the tickets than use them, that's your prerogative.
It's a writer's prerogative to decide the fate of her characters.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Foreign Affairs, 18 Apr. 2025
In a series of rulings over the past month on Trump's emergency requests to override low-level judicial roadblocks, the high court's conservative majority has been neither a rubber stamp for the president nor an aggressive check on his prerogative.
—Devin Dwyer, ABC News, 10 Apr. 2025
But in this case, Republicans argue that Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has the prerogative to decide which baseline is used to score the bill's cost.
—Kevin Freking, Time, 3 Apr. 2025
During an hourlong Oval Office appearance, Trump appeared to slap down, contradict or complicate each of Netanyahu’s policy prerogatives.
—Time, 9 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for prerogative
Cite this Entry
“Prerogative.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prerogative. Accessed 27 Apr. 2025.
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prerogative
noun
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