The phrase "ability to appropriate" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts discussing someone's capacity to take or use something, often in a creative or cultural sense.
Example: "The artist's ability to appropriate elements from various cultures has sparked both admiration and controversy."
Alternatives: "capacity to adopt" or "skill in utilizing".
Godard's "rediscovery" of Shakespeare is a grand statement about the power of moviemaking — its ability to appropriate and restore all other art forms.
He possessed an uncanny ability to appropriate trends in the wider culture and engaged boldly with the most significant developments of his time, from communism and nuclear threat to poverty and civil rights.
A third, in its melodic contour and conspicuous echo, recalls Papageno's aria in the first act of "The Magic Flute" and further reminds us that Mozart's genius lay not only in his powers of invention but also in his ability to appropriate.
Among the Jacobins' greatest triumphs was their ability to appropriate the rhetoric of patriotism — Le Patriote Français was the title of Brissot's newspaper — and to promote their political program through a tightly coordinated network of newspapers, political hacks, pamphleteers and political clubs.
For this reason, they cannot command a wage in the market which is sufficient to empower their formal ability to appropriate.
Higher HOMO energy (E HOMO) of the molecule means a higher electron-donating ability to appropriate acceptor molecules with low-energy empty molecular orbital and thus explains the adsorption on metallic surfaces by way of delocalized pairs of π-electrons.
Diagnosis of AS was taken to consist of having both the ability to detect (use of appropriate screening test) and the ability to confirm AS (access to appropriate confirmatory diagnostic tests).
Often they lose the ability to discern appropriate behavior from inappropriate.
the ability to make appropriate, logical measurements and produce quantitative results.
This has exposed serious weaknesses in the ability to project appropriate force.
Her ability to create appropriate facial expression given little information about Washington and his circle is her greatest gift.
