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.
Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 17 Oct. 2025
However, that effort has been challenged in court on the grounds that the state mandates infringe on local government prerogatives.
—Stefan Chavez-Norgaard, The Conversation, 16 Oct. 2025
Advertisement To be clear, academic freedom is too often seen as a narrow prerogative of the professorial class.
—Nicholas Dirks, Time, 16 Oct. 2025
The Court’s ruling, expected by year’s end, will either restore Congress’s trade prerogatives, or confirm that the president’s emergency powers can reach deep into the heart of global commerce.
—Lily Mae Lazarus, Fortune, 14 Oct. 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 4 Nov. 2025.
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prerogative
noun
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