Search the Dictionary

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

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

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

Almonry. [Improperly so used]

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.…

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.

Relating to, or resembling, a cup; also improperly used for calycular, calyculate.

n, each pushing on the end of a lever fixed in its socket. [Sometimes spelt Capstern, but improperly.] Capstan bar, one of the long bars or levers by which the capstan is worked; a handspike.. -- To pawl the capstan, to drop the pawls so that they will catch in the notches of the pawl ring, and prevent the capstan fro…

ust not be dismissed with a cursory mention. It might indeed, at that time, have been not improperly called a most important political institution . . . The coffeehouses were the chief organs through which the public opinion of the metropolis vented itself . . . Every man of the upper or middle class went daily to his…

or of lawyers restained in a cause. Writ of consultation (Law), a writ by which a cause, improperly removed by prohibition from one court to another, is returned to the court from which it came; -- so called because the judges, on consultation, find the prohibition ill-founded.

moon in her first quarter, or when defined by a concave and a convex edge; also, applied improperly to the old or decreasing moon in a like state.

f the southern United States and West Indies; -- called also saber fish, silver eel, and, improperly, swordfish.

Improperly, an heraldic bearing. Knights-errant used to distinguish themselves by devices on their shields. Addison. A banner with this strange device -Excelsior. Longfellow.

The act of giving or disposing of real estate by will; -- sometimes improperly applied to a bequest of personal estate.

; the district in which a bishop exercises his ecclesiastical authority. [Frequently, but improperly, spelt diocess.]

id an uncontrollable craving (often periodic) for drink, esp. for alcoholic liquors; also improperly used to denote acute and chronic alcoholism.

The assertion or statement of a thing done or existing; sometimes, even when false, improperly put, by a transfer of meaning, for the thing done, or supposed to be done; a thing supposed or asserted to be done; as, history abounds with false facts. I do not grant the fact. De Foe. This reasoning is founded upon a fact…

Improperly acquainted; wrongly intimate. Camden. Familiar spirit, a demon or evil spirit supposed to attend at call. 1 Sam. xxviii. 3, 7-9.