properness

English

Etymology

From proper +‎ -ness.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɒ.pə.nəs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɒ.pɚ.nəs/

Noun

properness (usually uncountable, plural propernesses)

1. The state or condition of being proper; propriety.
   • 1945, John Steinbeck, Cannery Row:

     The kind of women who put papers on shelves and had little towels like that instinctively distrusted and disliked Mack and the boys. Such women knew that they were the worst threats to a home, for they offered ease and thought and companionship as opposed to neatness, order, and properness.

2. (mathematics) The state or condition of being proper (of a proper fraction, proper subset, etc.).
3. (obsolete) Excellence, quality.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
     , II.3.2:

     Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits […] betook 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 […]