Law. Also 5 aproue, aprowe. [a. OFr. aproe-r, approer, approuer, apprower to profit, ‘faire profiter, enricher’ (Godefroi), f. à to + pros, obj. prode, pro, prou, preu (Pr., Sp., Pg. pro, It. pro, prode) ‘advantage, profit,’ a difficult word, pointing to an early Romanic subst. use of the prep. pro or prod- in prod-est (as if prod est mihi, it is a profit or advantage to me), perh. declined as *prod-is, prod-em. Cf. the adj. use in It. prode, pro, Pr. pros, OFr. proz, pros, prous, preus, obj. prode, prou, preu, mod.Fr. preux good, worthy, valiant, i.e., vir qui prod-est. (Cf. also It. prodezza, Pr., Sp. proeza, OFr. proesce, Fr. prouesse prowess, and OFr. prozom, prodom, Fr. prud’homme; and see Diez, Littré, Brachet.) The mod. Eng. form ought to be approw (cf. allow), but through confusion of u and v, approue was erroneously printed in 17th-c. Law-dicts. approve, as if a sense of the prec.]
lit. To make profit to oneself of (e.g., land), by increasing the value or rent. esp. Said of the lord of a manor enclosing or appropriating to his own advantage common land, as permitted by the Statute of Merton (20 Hen. III. c. iv.). Cf. IMPROVE.
[The Stat. of Merton exists only in Latin, but its phrase ‘faciant commodum suum’ exactly translates OFr. aproent, and is rendered in Stat. Westminster ‘appruare se possint de’; other latinized adaptations of the Fr. were approare, approvare, and finally (in 17th c.) approbare.]
1483. Cath. Angl., To approwe, Approare, sicut domini se faciunt de vastis.
1691. Blount, Law Dict., s.v., To approve Land is to make the best benefit of it by increasing the Rent.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., II. iii. This enclose, when justifiable, is called in law approving.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), III. 362. By the Statute of Merton … the lord is permitted to approve, that is to inclose the waste lands of his manor.
1865. Turner, in Morn. Star, 29 April. Sir T. Wilson not only considered himself entitled to ‘approve’ portions of the [Hampstead] Heath, but also contemplated letting out the plots which he might ‘approve’ for building purposes.
