Appropriation
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): (n.) The severing or sequestering of a benefice to the perpetual use of a spiritual corporation. Blackstone.
(2): (n.) The act of setting apart or assigning to a particular use or person, or of taking to one's self, in exclusion of all others; application to a special use or purpose, as of a piece of ground for a park, or of money to carry out some object.
(3): (n.) Anything, especially money, thus set apart.
(4): (n.) The application of payment of money by a debtor to his creditor, to one of several debts which are due from the former to the latter.
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary [2]
The annexing a benefice to the proper and perpetual use of some religious house. It is a term also often used in the religious world as referring to that act of the mind by which we apply the blessings of the Gospel to ourselves. This appropriation is real when we are enabled to believe in, feel, and obey the truth; but merely nominal and delusive when there are no fruits of righteousness and true holiness.
See Assurance
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [3]
in the canon law, is the setting apart of an ecclesiastical benefice to the peculiar and permanent use of some religious body. Appropriations sprung originally from the monastic orders, who purchased all the advowsons within their reach, and then appropriated the larger proportion of the proceeds of such benefices to the use of their own corporations, which they contended were not only institutions for pious purposes, but religious bodies; leaving the small remainder for the support of the incumbent. The appropriations now annexed to bishoprics, prebends, etc., in England, had all of them the above origin, if traced to their source; and at one period similar appropriations were made to religious houses, nunneries, and certain military orders, which were regarded as spiritual corporations. — Blackstone, vol. 1.
