Adjective

(en adjective)

(lb) Suitable.

#Suited or acceptable to the purpose or circumstances; fit, suitable.

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#*(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.

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#*

#*: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.

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(lb) Accurate, strictly applied.

#Excellent, of high quality; such as the specific person or thing should ideally be. (Now often merged with later senses.)

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#*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 .

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Adjective

(en adjective)

Belonging to, concerning, or accessible only to an individual person or a specific group.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)

, volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}

Not in governmental office or employment.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Peter Wilby)

, volume=189, issue=6, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Finland spreads word on schools , passage=Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16.

Not publicly known; not open; secret.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen.

Protected from view or disturbance by others; secluded.

Intended only for the use of an individual, group, or organization.

Not accessible by the public.

Not traded by the public.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private -equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

Secretive; reserved.

(US, of a room in a medical facility) Not shared with another patient.