Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or condition of being improper.
  • noun An improper act.
  • noun An improper or unacceptable usage in speech or writing.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being improper; unfitness or unsuitableness to character, time, place, or circumstances; unseemliness: as, impropriety of language or behavior.
  • noun That which is improper; an erroneous or unsuitable expression, act, etc.
  • noun Synonyms Indelicacy, unseemliness. Mistake, blunder, slip.—Barbarism, Solecism, Impropriety. In treatises on rhetorical style these words have distinct meanings. “Purity … implies three things. Accordingly in three different ways it may be injured. First, the words used may not be English. This fault hath received from grammarians the denomination of barbarism. Secondly, the construction of the sentence may not be in the English idiom. This hath gotten the name of solecism. Thirdly, the words and phrases may not be employed to express the precise meaning which custom hath affixed to them. This is termed impropriety.” (G. Campbell, Philos. of Rhetoric, ii. 3, Pref.) “In the forms of words, a violation of purity is a barbarism; in the constructions, a violation of purity is a solecism; in the meanings of words and Phrases, a violation of purity is an impropriety.” (A. Phelps, Eng. Style, i.) Examples of barbarisms in English are heft, pled, proven, systemize; of solecism, “Who did you see?” of improprieties, “There let him lay” (Byron, Childe Harold, iv. 180), and the use of enormity for enormousness, or of exceptionable for exceptional.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality of being improper; unfitness or unsuitableness to character, time place, or circumstances.
  • noun That which is improper; an unsuitable or improper act, or an inaccurate use of language.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The condition of being improper.
  • noun countable An improper act.
  • noun Improper language.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an improper demeanor
  • noun an act of undue intimacy
  • noun the condition of being improper
  • noun an indecent or improper act

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Madame Jansoulet alone, newly landed in France with a stock of Oriental ideas impeding circulation in her mind, as her nargileh, her ostrich eggs and all the rest of her Tunisian trash impeded it in her apartments, protested against what she called impropriety, cowardice, and declared that she would never step foot inside "that creature's" doors.

    The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) Alphonse Daudet 1868

  • Preventing the appearance of impropriety is important to help preserve whatever legitimacy you believe the Supreme Court still has.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Justice Thomas and Judge Reinhardt 2010

  • Quite how he has managed to rise to power without acquiring the right antennae to spot this obvious impropriety is a matter for surmise but in the modern climate in which politicians find themselves, a general slackening of standards comes as no surprise.

    Archive 2007-09-16 2007

  • Quite how he has managed to rise to power without acquiring the right antennae to spot this obvious impropriety is a matter for surmise but in the modern climate in which politicians find themselves, a general slackening of standards comes as no surprise.

    Second SNP Minister in Shares Scandal 2007

  • The appearance of impropriety is every bit as bad as the impropriety itself.

    Scripting News for 12/23/2006 « Scripting News Annex 2006

  • "Then I suppose there must have been what you call impropriety of conduct.

    The Simpkins Plot George A. Birmingham 1907

  • If there’s impropriety from a justice’s spouse arguing for particular policy results through political means, that same impropriety would carry over to legalmeans.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Justice Thomas and Judge Reinhardt 2010

  • If there’s impropriety from a justice’s spouse arguing for particular policy results through political means, that same impropriety would carry over to legalmeans.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Justice Thomas and Judge Reinhardt 2010

  • And you know, he is running around the world creating, you know, the appearance, at minimum, of impropriety, which is a standard of ...

    CNN Transcript Jun 3, 2008 2008

  • And assuming that he is not guilty -- but he is guilty of the things that we just heard about, that is, the impropriety of the relationship -- then I still think it might have been smarter to make this the local answer.

    CNN Transcript Aug 21, 2001 2001

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