One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering isproper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.
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 theproper garb of men.
2014, Paul Chrystal,Tea: A Very British Beverage:
TheNippy became a national icon, symbolic of the girl next door, always approachable andproper;[…]
those higher and peculiar attributes[…]which constitute ourproper humanity
(usually postpositive) In the strict sense; within the strict definition or core (of a specified place, taxonomic order, idea, etc).
1893,Annual of the Universal Medical Sciences:
These are divided into two great families, the vipersproper (Viperidae) and the pit-vipers (Crotalidae).
1976, Eu-Yang Kwang,The political reconstruction of China, page165:
Siberia, though it stands outside the territorial confines of Russiaproper, constitutes an essentially component part[…]. Outer Mongolia, [so called] to distinguish it from Inner Mongolia, which lies nearer to Chinaproper, revolted and declared its independence.
2004,Stress, the Brain and Depression, page24:
Hence, this border is still blurred, raising the question whether traumatic life events induce sadness/distress – which is self-evident – or depressionproper and, secondly, whether sadness/distress is a precursor or pacemaker of depression.
every country, and more than that, every private place, hath hisproper remedies growing in it, particular almost to the domineering and most frequent maladies of it.
Each animal has itsproper pleasure, and theproper pleasure of man is connected with reason.
(heraldry) Portrayed in natural or usualcoloration, as opposed to conventional tinctures.[16th c.]
(mathematics) Being strictlypart of some other thing (not necessarily explicitly mentioned, but of definitional importance), and not being the thing itself.[20th c.]
The same tyme was Moses borne, and was apropper[translatingἀστεῖος(asteîos)] childe in the sight of God, which was norisshed up in his fathers housse thre monethes.
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 cityproper[…].
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
'I thought it was the American Associated Press.' 'Oh, they are on the track, are they?' 'They to-day, and theTimes yesterday. Oh, they are buzzing roundproper.'
1956,Anthony Burgess,Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published1972, page202:
“Christmas Eve,” said Nabby Adams. “I used to pump the bloody organ for the carols,proper pissed usually.”
1957,Ray Lawler,Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Sydney: Fontana Books, published1974, page32:
The kid towelled him upproper.
1964, Saint Andrew Society (Glasgow, Scotland),The Scots magazine: Volume 82
1 When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite, the corresponding "indefinite" form is used. 2 The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.
1 The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative. 2 Dated or archaic. 3 Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine.
