Search the Dictionary

tances, 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. Pope.…

The act of upbraiding or taunting; a reproach; a taunt. [Obs.] Improperatios and terms of scurrility. Sir T. Browne

A series of antiphons and responses, expressing the sorrowful remonstrance of our Lord with his people; -- sung on the morning of the Good Friday in place of the usual daily Mass of the Roman ritual. Grove.

In an improper manner; not properly; unsuitably; unbecomingly.

Impropriety. [Obs.]

Improper treatment or use; application to a wrong or bad purpose; misuse; as, an abuse of our natural powers; an abuse of civil rights, or of privileges or advantages; an abuse of language. Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty, as well as by the abuses of power. Madison.

Wrongly used; perverted; misapplied. I am . . . necessitated to use the word Parliament improperly, according to the abusive acceptation thereof. Fuller.

way; to attach physically. Should they [caterpillars] affix them to the leaves of a plant improper for their food. Ray.

Improperly used also for the have; -- as in the phrases, a church with three aisles, the middle aisle.

A depraved appetite; a desire for improper food.

be, or capable of being, allowed; permissible; admissible; not forbidden; not unlawful or improper; as, a certain degree of freedom is allowable among friends.

Almonry. [Improperly so used]

rase now denotes a public apology or recantation, and reparation to an injured party, for improper language or treatment.

Astray; faultily; improperly; wrongly; ill. What error drives our eyes and ears amiss Shak. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss. James iv. 3. To take (an act, thing) amiss, to impute a wrong motive to (an act or thing); to take offense at' to take unkindly; as, you must not take these questions amiss.…

One who seceded from the Burghers (1747), deeming it improper to take the Burgess oath.

An acknowledgment intended as an atonement for some improper or injurious remark or act; an admission to another of a wrong or discourtesy done him, accompanied by an expression of regret.

e for the kingfishes of the eastern and southeastern coasts of the United States; -- also improperly called whiting.

The bell or vase of the Corinthian capital. [Improperly so used.] Gwilt.

Improperly, the unsupported span; as, the beam has twenty feet of bearing between its supports.

taking of the nature of a bull, or a blunder. Let me inform you, a toothless satire is as improper as a toothed sleek stone, and as bullish. Milton.