Obviously somewhat off-topic, but I'm irritated by this usage trend I see taking the internet by storm.
"Entitled" means "having a legal right to something", not "having a (spurious) sense of entitlement". Perhaps there's a one-word slur that means what you're trying to say, but "entitled" isn't it.
I think the meaning becomes clear because this sense of the word is almost always used as an attributive modifier of a pejorative term: e.g., "entitled pricks", "entitled, combative princess." I agree with you that it has a much more specific meaning as a predicate compliment: "I'm entitled to my own opinion."
Language changes. People sometimes still complain about "hopefully" being used as a sentence modifier, as in, "Hopefully language mavens will see their role in speech communities as custodians and curators of beneficial older conventions, rather than as guardians and protectors of acrolectic law." However, the etymologically literal sense of this word ("in a manner full of hope") has so little use that the non-standard meaning predominates.
Hmm, good catch, didn't know that. Though, I think the usage is common enough to be colloquial. The article itself talks about the sense of entitlement that developers have, for instance.
Maybe a word like arrogated would work? It isn't totally right, though, and it'd be sacrificing communication for the sake of formal correctness. I'm guessing entitled has taken on its contemporary meaning through a need for a word that didn't exist.
The other point I was passive-aggressively hoping to make by grammar nitpicking is that maybe we can do without a one-word slur meaning that, since its primary purpose is for one side in a negotiation to call the other side a bunch of big fat pussies in an attempt to shame them into weakening their demands.
I imagine we don't have one word that means "having a spurious sense of entitlement" because up until recently (the last one or two hundred years) it was generally crystal clear whether your station allowed you to demand something of someone else or not, so that you'd simply throw someone's station in their face instead of trying to make a sense of entitlement into a character flaw.
Oh, totally picked up on the other point. By pointedly ignoring it, I hinting that my original comment was purposefully made to be more polemic than rational argument, in case the "fuck these people" didn't give it away, and focus on linguistic nerddom which is more interesting anyway =)
I don't see it so much as a negotiating tool, though. Analyzing it, I'd say it's more an attempt to raise the relative status of the HN tribe by putting down the status of middle managers than anything else.
My 1991 copy of the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't have any definition resembling 3, nor does my Tenth Edition Webster's, so whatever source you must have checked must be quite recent.
"Entitled" means "having a legal right to something", not "having a (spurious) sense of entitlement". Perhaps there's a one-word slur that means what you're trying to say, but "entitled" isn't it.