Propriety vs Properness - What's the difference?
propriety | properness |
(obsolete) The particular character or essence of someone or something; individuality.
(obsolete) A characteristic; an attribute.
(obsolete) More generally, something owned by someone; a possession.
* 1723 , Charles Walker, Memoirs of the Life of Sally Salisbury :
The fact of possessing something; ownership.
Suitability, fitness; the quality of being appropriate.
* 1773 ,
* 1850 ,
Correctness in behaviour and morals; good manners, seemliness.
* 1811 , (Jane Austen), :
* {{quote-news
, year=2012
, date=May 27
, author=Nathan Rabin
, title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992)
, work=The Onion AV Club
(obsolete) Excellence, quality.
*, II.3.2:
*:Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuitsbetook himself to his beads, and by those means got more honour than ever he should have done with the use of his limbs and properness of person […].
The state or condition of being proper; propriety.
(mathematics) The state or condition of being proper (of a proper fraction, proper subset, etc.).
In obsolete terms the difference between propriety and properness
is that propriety is more generally, something owned by someone; a possession while properness is excellence, quality.propriety
English
Noun
- I was fearful of giving You a very sensible Disgust, in making You'' seem the ''Propriety'' of ''one Man'', when You know Yourself ''ordained'' for the Comfort and Refreshment of ''Multitudes .
- I find such a pleasure, sir, in obeying your commands, that I take care to observe them without ever debating their propriety .
- Now, if we may, with propriety', refer to the people one question, why may we not, with equal ' propriety , refer another?
- Elinor then ventured to doubt the propriety of her receiving such a present from a man so little, or at least so lately known to her.
citation, page= , passage=The neighbor is eventually able to sell her home despite Homer’s pants-less affronts to propriety and decency and Bart falls deeply and instantly for one of its new inhabitants, a tough but charming and funny tomboy girl named Laura (voiced by Sara Gilbert) with just the right combination of toughness and sweetness, granite and honey.}}
References
*"Propriety" at Dictionary.com