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Want of modesty, delicacy, or decent reserve; indecency. "A piece of immodesty." Pope.

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. Shak. And to their proper operation still, Ascribe all Good; to their improper, Ill…

The quality or state of being indecent; want of decency, modesty, or good manners; obscenity.

Lustful; lewd; salacious; indecent; obscene.

ch one makes shift; a temporary expedient. James Mill. I am not a model clergyman, only a decent makeshift. G. Eliot.

der are, to attend lying-in hospitals, to superintend the education of girls, and protect decent women out of employment, to visit prisoners and the sick, and to attend persons condemned to death. -- To be at the mercy of, to be wholly in the power of.

ex; not unwomanly in act or bearing; free from undue familiarity, indecency, or lewdness; decent in speech and demeanor; -- said of a woman. Mrs. Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife. Shak. The blushing beauties of a modest maid. Dryden.

Characterized by obcenity; indecent; indelicate; gross; filthy.

n I will myself Be the chief mourner at his obsequies. Dryden. The funeral obsequies were decently and privately performed by his family J. P. Mahaffy.

Specifically, to violate; to commit an indecent assault upon (a female).

efitting one's nature, qualities, etc.; suitable in all respect; appropriate; right; fit; decent; as, water is the proper element for fish; a proper dress. The proper study of mankind is man. Pope. In Athens all was pleasure, mirth, and play, All proper to the spring, and sprightly May. Dryden.

To make acceptable; to attract favor to. A decent boldness ever meets with friends, Succeeds, and e'en a stranger recommends. Pope.

ribald; low, vulgar language; indecency; obscenity; lewdness; -- now chiefly applied to indecent language, but formerly, as by Chaucer, also to indecent acts or conduct. The ribaldry of his conversation moved Macaulay.

; esp., fig., verging upon impropriety; dangerously close to, or suggestive of, what is indecent or of doubtful morality; as, a risqué story. Henry Austin.

aving the tide, and putting in a stock of merit. Swift. To save appearance, to preserve a decent outside; to avoid exposure of a discreditable state of things.

Using the low and indecent language of the meaner sort of people, or such as only the license of buffoons can warrant; as, a scurrilous fellow.

In a decent or suitable manner; becomingly. Suddenly a men before him stood, Not rustic as before, but seemlier clad, As one in city or court or place bred. Milton.

Comely or decent appearance. [Obs.] Rom. of R. Spenser.

Exciting the feeling of shame in others; indecent; as, a shameful picture; a shameful sight. Spenser.

Indicating want of modesty, or sensibility to disgrace; indecent; as, a shameless picture or poem.