Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Nearest; immediate; proximate.

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

  • adjective obsolete Next; immediately preceding or following.

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

  • adjective obsolete next; immediately preceding or following

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin proximus. See proximate; compare proximo.

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Examples

  • This is not the only place in Book 1 where Newton takes the trouble to derive an “If ¦ quam proxime, then ¦ quam proxime” version of an exact “If ¦, then ¦” proposition.

    Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Smith, George 2007

  • This question, however, is irrelevant so long as the conclusion remains in the weak form, the law of gravity holds quam proxime for the planets and their satellites over the time period for which observations have shown the phenomena to hold quam proxime.

    Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Smith, George 2007

  • He is using “if, then” statements that have been shown in Book 1 to hold in “if ¦ quam proxime, then ¦ quam proxime” form to infer conclusions from premises that hold at least quam proxime over a restricted period of time.

    Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Smith, George 2007

  • The second and third corollaries of Proposition 3 then yield the conclusion that a motion is quam proxime governed purely by centripetal forces if and only if equal areas are quam proxime swept out in equal times.

    Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Smith, George 2007

  • A failure to notice these quam proxime forms in Book 1 blinds one to the subtlety of the approximative reasoning Newton employs in Book 3. 7.

    Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Smith, George 2007

  • The conclusions, so taken, do indeed then show that the premises hold only quam proxime, and not exactly.

    Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Smith, George 2007

  • Using Newton's preferred phrasing, quam proxime (literally, “most nearly as possible”), this latter conditional has an “If ¦ quam proxime, then ¦ quam proxime” form.

    Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Smith, George 2007

  • His various and exotic knowledge, complete although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of language, fit him out to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he is with some, not quite with me — proxime accessit, I should say.

    Memories and Portraits 2005

  • Dampierae proxime habitu et plurimis cum floris, tum habitus characteribus, paracolla cuculliforme ab omnibus Goodeniacearum generibus huc usque cognitis, diversa.

    Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia 2003

  • If, for instance, I had chosen to associate with young Gilbert de Belloeuvre; apart from golf, he was a boy who had the gift of conversation, who had secured a proxime in the examinations and wrote quite good poetry

    The Sweet Cheat Gone 2003

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