| an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
A payment made for some right or privilege, as when a publisher pays a royalty to an author for the author's granting the publisher the right to sell the author's book.
royalty
in law, the payment made to the owners of certain types of rights by those who are permitted by the owners to exercise the rights. The rights concerned are literary, musical, and artistic copyright; patent rights in inventions and designs; and rights in mineral deposits, including oil and natural gas. The term originated from the fact that in Great Britain for centuries gold and silver mines were the property of the crown; such "royal" metals could be mined only if a payment ("royalty") were made to the crown
Learn more about royalty with a free trial on Britannica.com.