Proper vs Commonplace - What's the difference?
proper | commonplace | Related terms |
(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= #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 .
#
#:
(Scotland) properly; thoroughly; completely
* 1964 , Saint Andrew Society (Glasgow, Scotland), The Scots magazine: Volume 82
(nonstandard, slang) properly
* 2012 , (Soufside), Hello (song)
Ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.
* 1824 , Sir (Walter Scott), , ch. 7:
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1
, passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.}}
* 1911 , (w), (Under Western Eyes) , ch. 1:
A platitude or .
* 1899 , , Active Service , ch. 17:
* 1910 , , His Hour , ch. 4:
Something that is ordinary.
* 1891 , , "A Case of Identity" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes :
A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.
* Jonathan Swift
A commonplace book.
To make a commonplace book.
To enter in a commonplace book, or to reduce to general heads.
* Felton
(obsolete) To utter commonplaces; to indulge in platitudes.
* 1910 , , His Hour , ch. 4:
Proper is a related term of commonplace.
As adjectives the difference between proper and commonplace
is that proper is (lb) suitable while commonplace is ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.As an adverb proper
is (scotland) properly; thoroughly; completely.As a noun commonplace is
a platitude or.As a verb commonplace is
to make a commonplace book.proper
English
(wikipedia proper)Alternative forms
* propre (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)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.}}
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, utterAntonyms
* incorrect, wrong, bad, imprudent, insensible * inappropriate, indecent, bad, impolite, wrong, ill-mannered, unseemly * inappropriate, unjust, dishonorable * partial, incomplete, superficial, slapdash * (true) incompleteSee also
* proper adjective * proper fraction * proper nounAdverb
(-)- Don't you think you must have looked proper daft?
- When I meet a bad chick, know I gotta tell her hello
- talk real proper , but she straight up out the ghetto
Statistics
*commonplace
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- "This Mr. Tyrrel," she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, "seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man."
- I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of our impotence before each other's trials.
Synonyms
* routine * undistinguished * unexceptional * See alsoAntonyms
* distinguished * inimitable * uniqueNoun
(en noun)- Finally he began to mutter some commonplaces which meant nothing particularly.
- And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.
- "My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence."
- Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace .
Verb
(commonplac)- I do not apprehend any difficulty in collecting and commonplacing an universal history from the historians.
- And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.
- (Francis Bacon)