Indecent vs Unproper - What's the difference?
indecent | unproper |
offensive to good taste
not in keeping with conventional moral values; improper, immodest or unseemly
(obsolete) Improper, not according with fact or reason; wrong, irregular.
*c. 1631 , John Donne, letter to Sir Henry Goodyere, Works , Letter XC, p. 409:
*:Sir, as I said last time, labour to keep your alacrity and dignity, in an even temper: for in a dark sadness, indifferent things seem abominable, or necessary, being neither; as trees, and sheep, to melancholy night-walkers, have unproper shapes.
*1623 , Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum , VII.694:
*:The pleasure in the act of Venus is the greatest of the pleasures of the senses: the matching of it with itch is unproper ; though that also be pleasing to the touch.
*2009 , "Own Goal for Football", The Times , 10 Oct 09:
*:Transparency is paramount. If football’s guardians cannot deliver it they will, rightly, be deemed to be every bit as unfit and unproper to play a role in administering the sport as any secretive investor they may feel motivated to investigate.
(obsolete) Not belonging to a given person; someone else's.
*1604 , William Shakespeare, Othello , IV.1:
*:There's Millions now aliue, That nightly lye in those vnproper beds, Which they dare sweare peculiar.
(rare) Improper, not according with good standards of behaviour; indecent, indecorous.
*1962 , "Meet me in St. Louis", Time , 27 Apr 1962:
*:His equally unproper brother, City Planner Charles W. II, shocked purists in the 19303 by building a flat-topped house in Ipswich.
