IMPROPER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Improper

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/ɪmprˈɑpər/ Listen

adjective

Improper adj.

Not proper; not suitable; not fitted to the circumstances, design, or end; unfit; not becoming; incongruous; inappropriate; indecent; as, an improper medicine; improper thought, behavior, language, dress. "Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service, Improper for a slave." "And to their proper operation still, Ascribe all Good; to their improper, Ill."

Not peculiar or appropriate to individuals; general; common. (Obs.) "Not to be adorned with any art but such improper ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and poetry."

Not according to facts; inaccurate; erroneous.

Improper diphthong. See under Diphthong.

Improper feud, an original feud, not earned by military service.

Improper fraction. See under Fraction.

verb

Improper v. t. To appropriate; to limit. (Obs.) "He would in like manner improper and inclose the sunbeams to comfort the rich and not the poor."

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Etymology of 'Improper'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Improper" Quotes from Famous Books

... defeated by his rival, had the mean ambition to appeal to the Spartan sword. Ancient scandal attributes to Cleomenes, king of Sparta, an improper connexion with the wife of Isagoras, and every one knows that the fondest friend of the cuckold is invariably the adulterer;—the national policy of founding aristocracies was doubtless, however, a graver motive with the ...

— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... probably does injustice to reality (females were treated the same way), but it should be noted that any error introduced in this way was almost certain to have increased the number of "subadults" in the samples. Thus, the hypothesis above based on age-ratios is not automatically invalid because of improper aging. ...

— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston

... had a bad effect upon him. To be without money to buy the finest brand of cigars, to be annoyed by boarding-house keepers, tailors, and costumers, to have to buy medicines with cash when he was without his usual luxuries, was a condition of affairs that struck Roland as extremely improper for a young man ...

— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... improbable but Will was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physick; and that, finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at length to his own inventions. But certainly, however improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade and commerce. As I think this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader to compare what I have here written with what ...

— The Coverley Papers • Various

... am sending an officer to Fort Saskatchewan to take command of that portion of the territory." Later he says: "The operation of foreign whalers at the mouth of the Mackenzie will ere long require a detachment to control their improper dealings with the natives and control the revenue." And in due course ...

— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

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