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Proper vs Average - What's the difference?

proper | average | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between proper and average

is that proper is Suitable.average is constituting or relating to the average.

As an adverb proper

is properly; thoroughly; completely.

As a noun average is

financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.

As a verb average is

to compute the arithmetic mean of.

proper

English

(wikipedia proper)

Alternative forms

* propre (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (lb) Suitable.
  • #Suited or acceptable to the purpose or circumstances; fit, suitable.
  • #:
  • #*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • #*:The proper study of mankind is man.
  • #*{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-14, volume=411, issue=8891, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= It's a gas , passage=One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.}}
  • #Following the established standards of behavior or manners; correct or decorous.
  • #:
  • #*
  • #*:This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking.Indeed, all his features were in large mold, like the man himself, as though he had come from a day when skin garments made the proper garb of men.
  • (lb) Possessed, related.
  • #(lb) Used to designate a particular person, place, or thing. Proper words are usually written with an initial capital letter.
  • #Pertaining exclusively to a specific thing or person; particular.
  • #*, II.1.3:
  • #*:They have a proper saint almost for every peculiar infirmity: for poison, gouts, agues.
  • #*(Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
  • #*:those high and peculiar attributeswhich constitute our proper humanity
  • #(lb) Belonging to oneself or itself; own.
  • #*(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • #*:my proper son
  • #*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • #*:Now learn the difference, at your proper cost, / Betwixt true valour and an empty boast.
  • #*, II.4.1.ii:
  • #*:every country, and more than that, every private place, hath his proper remedies growing in it, particular almost to the domineering and most frequent maladies of it.
  • #*1946 , (Bertrand Russell), (A History of Western Philosophy) , I.20:
  • #*:Each animal has its proper' pleasure, and the ' proper pleasure of man is connected with reason.
  • #(lb) Portrayed in natural or usual coloration, as opposed to conventional tinctures.
  • #
  • (lb) Accurate, strictly applied.
  • #Excellent, of high quality; such as the specific person or thing should ideally be. (Now often merged with later senses.)
  • #:
  • #
  • #*1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , (w) VII:
  • #*:The same tyme was Moses borne, and was a propper childe in the sight of God, which was norisshed up in his fathers housse thre monethes.
  • #In the very strictest sense of the word (now often as postmodifier).
  • #*, Episode 16:
  • #*:Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper .
  • #
  • #:
  • Synonyms

    * correct, right, apt, prudent, sensible, fitting * appropriate, decent, good, polite, right, well-mannered * appropriate, just, honorable * comprehensive, royal, sweeping, intensive * (true) full, complete * complete, right (informal), total, utter

    Antonyms

    * incorrect, wrong, bad, imprudent, insensible * inappropriate, indecent, bad, impolite, wrong, ill-mannered, unseemly * inappropriate, unjust, dishonorable * partial, incomplete, superficial, slapdash * (true) incomplete

    See also

    * proper adjective * proper fraction * proper noun

    Adverb

    (-)
  • (Scotland) properly; thoroughly; completely
  • * 1964 , Saint Andrew Society (Glasgow, Scotland), The Scots magazine: Volume 82
  • Don't you think you must have looked proper daft?
  • (nonstandard, slang) properly
  • * 2012 , (Soufside), Hello (song)
  • When I meet a bad chick, know I gotta tell her hello
    talk real proper , but she straight up out the ghetto

    Statistics

    *

    average

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (legal, marine) Financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.
  • * 2008 , Filiberto Agusti, Beverley Earle, Richard Schaffer, Filiberto Agusti, Beverley Earle, International Business Law and Its Environment , page 219,
  • Historically, the courts have allowed a general average' claim only where the loss occurred as a result of the ship being in immediate peril.The court awarded the carrier the general '''average''' claim. It noted that “a ship?s master should not be discouraged from taking timely action to avert a disaster,” and need not be in actual peril to claim general ' average .
  • Customs duty or similar charge payable on transported goods.
  • Proportional or equitable distribution of financial expense.
  • (mathematics) The arithmetic mean.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty
  • , date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.}}
    The average of 10, 20 and 24 is (10 + 20 + 24)/3 = 18.
  • (statistics) Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode.
  • (sports) An indication of a player's ability calculated from his scoring record, etc.
  • (UK, legal, obsolete) The service that a tenant owed his lord, to be done by the animals of the tenant, such as the transportation of wheat, turf, etc.
  • (UK, in the plural) In the corn trade, the medial price of the several kinds of grain in the principal corn markets.
  • Usage notes

    * (sense) The term average' may refer to the statistical mean, median or mode of a batch, sample, or distribution, or sometimes any other measure of central tendency. Statisticians and responsible news sources are careful to use whichever of these specific terms is appropriate. In common usage, ' average refers to the arithmetic mean. It is, however, a common rhetorical trick to call the most favorable of mean, median and mode the "average" depending on the interpretation of a set of figures that the speaker or writer wants to promote.

    Coordinate terms

    * (measure of central tendency) arithmetic mean, geometric mean, harmonic mean, mean, median, mode

    Derived terms

    * above average * average atomic mass * averager * batting average * below average * bowling average * earned run average * general average * grade point average * height above average terrain * law of averages * moving average * on average * particular average * rolling average * slugging average * subaverage * time average * weighted average * weighted-average cost of capital

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (not comparable) Constituting or relating to the average.
  • The average age of the participants was 18.5.
  • Neither very good nor very bad; rated somewhere in the middle of all others in the same category.
  • I soon found I was only an average chess player.
  • Typical.
  • * 2002 , Andy Turnbull, The Synthetic Beast: When Corporations Come to Life , page 12,
  • We tend to think that exceptionally attractive men and women are outstanding but the fact is that they are more average than most.
  • * 2004 , Deirdre V. Lovecky, Different Minds: Gifted Children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits , page 75,
  • Things that never would occur to more average children, with and without AD/HD, will give these children nightmares.
  • * '2009'', Susan T. Fiske, ''Social Beings: Core Motives in Social Psychology , page 73,
  • In other words, highly attractive people like highly attractive communicators and more average' people like more ' average communicators.
    The average family will not need the more expensive features of this product.
  • (informal) Not outstanding, not good, banal; bad or poor.
  • * 2002 , Andy Slaven, Video Game Bible, 1985-2002 , page 228,
  • The graphics, sound, and most everything else are all very average . However, the main thing that brings this game down are the controls - they feel very clumsy and awkward at times.
  • * 2005 , Brad Knight, Laci Peterson: The Whole Story: Laci, Scott, and Amber's Deadly Love Triangle , page 308,
  • But what the vast majority of the populace doesn?t realise is the fact that he?s only on TV because he became famous from one case, Winona Ryder's, which, by the way, he lost because he?s only a very average attorney.
  • * 2009 , Carn Tiernan, On the Back of the Other Side , page 62,
  • In the piano stool there was a stack of music, mostly sentimental ballads intended to be sung by people with very average voices accompanied by not very competent pianists.

    Synonyms

    * (constituting or relating to the average) mean; expectation (colloquial) * (neither very good nor very bad) mediocre, medium, middle-ranking, middling, unremarkable, so-so, * (typical) conventional, normal, regular, standard, typical, usual, bog-standard (slang) * ordinary, uninspiring

    Antonyms

    * (neither very good nor very bad) extraordinary

    Derived terms

    * average bear * average Joe * averagely * averageness

    Verb

    (averag)
  • (informal) To compute the arithmetic mean of.
  • If you average 10, 20 and 24, you get 18.
  • Over a period of time or across members of a population, to have or generate a mean value of.
  • The daily high temperature last month averaged 15°C.
  • To divide among a number, according to a given proportion.
  • to average a loss
  • To be, generally or on average.
  • * 1872 Elliott Coues, Key to North American Birds
  • Gulls average much larger than terns, with stouter build

    Derived terms

    * average down * average out * average up * averageable * unaveraged