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/prəprˈaɪəti/ Listen

noun

Propriety n. (pl. proprieties)

Individual right to hold property; ownership by personal title; property. (Obs.) "Onles this propriety be exiled." "So are the proprieties of a wife to be disposed of by her lord, and yet all are for her provisions, it being a part of his need to refresh and supply hers."

That which is proper or peculiar; an inherent property or quality; peculiarity. (Obs.) "We find no mention hereof in ancient zoographers,... who seldom forget proprieties of such a nature."

The quality or state of being proper; suitableness to an acknowledged or correct standard or rule; consonance with established principles, rules, or customs; fitness; appropriateness; as, propriety of behavior, language, manners, etc. "The rule of propriety,"

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Etymology of 'Propriety'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Propriety" Quotes from Famous Books

... Pamela to show an ounce more feeling than the strictest canons of propriety demanded, and she fulfilled my expectations to the letter; but I had hoped, I confess, that Chillington would have displayed some little consciousness. He did not; and it is my belief that, throughout the events which I have recorded, he retained, and that he still retains, the conviction ...

— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... never be brought about except by foreign capital and tact. The natives have not the requisite enterprise and industry. While these chapters are passing through the press, the home government is discussing in the Cortes the propriety of making a large loan to the Cubans for the purpose of bringing the lands above referred to into market, as well as rendering others accessible. But it is doubtful if anything practical is accomplished, unless ...

— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... providing for the abolishment of the disgraceful extra-territoriality regime in Japan, to take effect, however, upon the taking effect of the new Civil Code. The last and greatest event of all, the new Code was adopted. With equal propriety, then, the Emperor Mutsuhito might have joined Justinian, in proclaiming:—"Imperatoriam Majestatem non solum armis decoratam, sed etiam legibus opportet esse armatam, ut utrumque tempus et bellorum et ...

— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... foresters rather ambitiously call it, the science of sylviculture has been so little pursued in England and America, that its nomenclature has not been introduced into the English vocabulary, and it would not be possible to describe its processes with technical propriety of language, without occasionally borrowing a word from the forest literature of France and Germany. A full discussion of the methods of sylviculture would, indeed, be out of place in a work like the present, but the ...

— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... him back with a delicious sense of responsibility and stood over him till he was adequately fitted. In other aspects he was like a woman in whose shy delicacy she could confide. She awoke also to a new realization—that of power. Now, to use power with propriety needs wisdom, and the woman who is wise at five-and-twenty cannot make out at sixty why she has remained an old maid. The delightful way to use it is that of a babe when he first discovers that a stick hits. That is the way that Zora, who was not wise, used it over ...

— Septimus • William J. Locke

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