proprietorship.

A business owned by one person, or the arrangement in which one person owns and runs it.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• sole proprietorship
• small proprietorship

On the page

She operated the workshop as a sole proprietorship rather than forming a company.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Countable or uncountable by context; countable singular proprietorship; plural proprietorships. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Commonness: moderately common.