impropriety

From French impropriété, from Latin improprietās. By surface analysis, improper +‎ -iety or im- +‎ propriety.

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪm.pɹəˈpɹaɪ.ɪ.ti/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

impropriety (countable and uncountable, plural improprieties)

1. (uncountable) The condition of being improper.
   • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. , volume II, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, pages 295–296:

     If so many ladies of rank wrote books, there could be no impropriety in her following their example,...

   • 2003, Gary Koop, Bayesian Econometrics (John Wiley & Sons Ltd.), p. 23

     To see the impropriety of this noninformative prior, note that the posterior results (2.19)–(2.22) can be justified by as combining the likelihood function with the following ‘prior density’:

2. (countable) An improper act.
   • 1978, Richard Nixon, RN: the Memoirs of Richard Nixon‎, Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 421:

     Bayh and his supporters ended up maintaining that it was no longer sufficient that a nominee had not engaged in any impropriety; now there must be no "appearance" of impropriety. Thus opponents of a nominee could raise an "appearance" of impropriety by false charges and thereby defeat him. It was a vicious circle: the nominee would not be condemned for what he had done but for what he had been accused of having done by his detractors.

3. Improper language.