Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Proportional |
ProportionalAdjective1. Properly related in size or degree or other measurable characteristics; usually followed by `to'; "punishment oughtt to be proportional to the crime"; "earnings relative to production". 2. Increasing as the amount taxed increases. Noun1. One of the quantities in a mathematical proportion. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "proportional" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1644. (references) |
Etymology: Proportional \Pro*por"tion*al\, adjective. [Latin proportionalis: compare to French proportionnel.]. (Websters 1913) |
| Domain | Definition |
Health | Being in proportion : corresponding in size, degree, or intensity, having the same or a constant ratio; of, relating to, or used in determining proportions. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Two related quantities x and y are called proportional (or directly proportional) if there exists a constant non-zero number k such that
To test whether x and y are proportional, one performs several measurements and plots the resulting points in a Cartesian coordinate system. If the points lie on (or close to) a straight line passing through the origin (0,0), then the two variables are proportional, with the proportionality constant given by the line's slope.
The two quantities x and y are inversely proportional if there exists a non-zero constant k such that
See also: proportional font, proportional representation
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Proportional."
Synonyms: ProportionalSynonyms: graduated (adj), relative (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Elasticity | Phrase: the stress is proportional to the strain. |
Number | Proportional, exponential, logarithmic, logometric, differential, fluxional, integral, totitive. |
Relation | Approximative, approximating; proportional, proportionate, proportionable; allusive, comparable. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Sir, it's immediate, it's decisive, it's low-risk, and it's a proportional response. (The American President; writing credit: Aaron Sorkin) Someday someone's going to have to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response. (The American President; writing credit: Aaron Sorkin) | |
Clever | The hardness of butter is directly proportional to the softness of the bread. (references; author: unknown) The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the ability to reach it. (references; author: unknown) At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying. (references; author: unknown) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Proportional dividers designed to give a scale reduction of either 1/2 or an expansion of 2 times the original scale depending on the need. In: "Geometriae practicae novae et auctae tractatus I[-IV] ..." by Schwenter, Daniel, 1585-1636. Vol. I, page 79. Published posthumously in 1641. Credit: Treasures of the Library. |  | Figure 27. Model of an Ekman Current Meter. This type of current meter was invented by V. Wilfred Ekman in about 1903. It had a novel method of recording current speed and direction. In effect small marbles were distributed by a drainpipe on the magnetized pointer for recording direction while the number of marbles was proportional to the strength of current. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |
 | Figure 48. Walker log, used to measure the speed of a ship under way. This instrument was towed behind a vessel and the number of turns of the rotor during a given interval was directly proportional to the speed of the vessel through the water. This instrument was apparently invented prior to 1882 and sold under the name "T. Walker's patent harpoon ship log.". Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Risk for morbidity and mortality accompanying obesity is proportional to the degree of overweight. (references) | |
With agents infrequently present in donated blood such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the risk of infection is roughly proportional to the number of donor exposures. (references) | ||
Radiation has been shown to cause breast cancer in women, and the risk is proportional to dose. The younger the woman at the time of exposure, the greater her lifetime risk for breast cancer. (references) | ||
Business | The vehicle fleet size is proportional to the country's demographics. (references) | |
Hypermarkets offer more space, yet less than proportional to their total sales. (references) | ||
The extent of the service and support requirement is directly proportional to the technical complexity of the product. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Norway | A religious community is required to register with the Government only if it desires state support, which is provided to all registered denominations on a proportional basis in accordance with membership. (references) |
Hungary | Only FIDESZ-led coalition Government delegates served on the truncated media boards for Hungarian Public Radio and Hungarian Public Television, despite the fact that the law requires politically proportional representation on the boards. (references) | |
Economic History | Italy | In 1993 referendums, voters approved substantial changes, including moving from a proportional to a largely majoritarian electoral system and the abolishment of some ministries. (references) |
Human Rights | El Salvador | Statistics provided by the PNC showed that the number of officers removed from the force at each grade was proportional to the number of officers at that grade in the PNC. The presidential commission had identified 14 persons suspected of having committed torture in 2000 and prior years. (references) |
Uruguay | The 1995 Public Security Law requires a proportional use of force by the police and the use of weapons only as a last resort, in accordance with U.N. codes regarding the use of force; and this law is respected in practice. (references) | |
Political Economy | Austria | Virtually all legislative authority is concentrated in the National Council whose 183 members are elected according to a system of proportional representation and party affiliation, including a threshold of 4 percent for each party. (references) |
Political Rights | Namibia | Members of the National Assembly are elected on a party list system on a proportional basis. (references) |
Seychelles | They continue to hold 8 of the 34 seats in the National Assembly, 6 by direct election and 2 by proportional representation. (references) | |
Somalia | In the Republic of Somaliland, a clan conference led to a peace accord in 1997. This accord demobilized militia groups, established a constitution and bicameral parliament with proportional clan representation, and elected a president and vice president from a slate of candidates. (references) | |
Trade | Brazil | Due taxes are proportional to the time frame the imported product will remain in Brazil. (references) |
Slovak Rep | The temporary import regime allows for commercial use of foreign goods (which must remain in the ownership of the foreign entity), such as machinery and equipment, with the obligation to pay only part of the import charges proportional to the period of use in Slovakia. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
John Quincy Adams | 1825-1829 | We have been partakers of that improvement and owe for it a sacred debt, not only of gratitude, but of equal or proportional exertion in the same common cause. |
Andrew Jackson | 1829-1837 | If in asserting rights or in repelling wrongs war should come upon us, our regular force should be increased to an extent proportional to the emergency, and our present small Army is a nucleus around which such force could be formed and embodied. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Proportional" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.78% of the time. "Proportional" is used about 917 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.78% | 915 | 7,843 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.22% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 917 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "proportional": Directly proportional ♦ inversely proportional ♦ Mean proportional ♦ proportional action ♦ proportional band ♦ proportional control ♦ proportional counter ♦ proportional counter tube ♦ proportional font ♦ Proportional Hazards Models ♦ proportional limit ♦ proportional logarithms ♦ proportional meter ♦ proportional module ♦ proportional rate ♦ proportional region ♦ proportional representation ♦ proportional sample ♦ proportional sampling ♦ proportional scale ♦ proportional spacing ♦ proportional tax ♦ proportional weir ♦ reciprocally proportional ♦ the stress is proportional to the strain. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "proportional": non-proportional. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "proportional"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | proporcional (commensurate, proportionate, rateable), i përpjesshëm (proportionate), gjymtyrë e proporcionit. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | متناسب (commensurate, proportionate, symmetric, symmetrical), نسبي (comparative, genealogical, prorate, relative), تناسبي, الكمية المتناسبة. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | член на пропорция, пропорционален (commensurable, commensurate, proportionable, proportionate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | "例 (Proportion). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | přimìřený (adequate, appropriate, commensurate, fair, suitable), úmìrný (commensurate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | proportional. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | proportioneel, evenredig. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | proporcia. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | verrannollinen (relative), suhteellinen (comparative, proportionate, relative). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | proportionnel (pro rata). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | proportional (proportionally, proportionate, proportionately), verhältnismäßig (commensurate, comparative, comparatively, pro rata, proportionally, proportionate, propositional, reasonable, relative, relatively). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | αναλογικά (pro rata). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | יחסי (commensurate, comparative, relative). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | arányos (commensurable, commensurate, proportionable, proportionate, shapely, well-proportioned). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | seimbang (in equilibrim, well-balanced), sebanding (comparable). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | proporzionale (congruent, prorata). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 按分 (proportional division or distribution), 拘束名簿式"例代表制 (proportional representation system), "例配分 (proportional distribution), "例式 (proportional expression), "例代表制 (proportional representation), 案分 (proportional division or distribution). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | ひれいしき (proportional expression), ひれいはいぶ" (proportional distribution), ひれい いひょうせい (proportional representation), "うそくめいぼひれい いひょうせい (proportional representation system), あ"ぶ" (draft, proportional division or distribution). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 비례. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | lieh my lieh (even, share and share alike), freggyrtagh (accountable, answerable, answerer, answering, answering letter, compatible, congruence, fits, reactive, replicative, respondent, responsible), coreiragh (accordant, proportionate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | oportionalpray proporcional (average, commensurable, ratable, rateable, relative, well-proportioned). (various references) proporţionalã, proporţional (proportionally), relativ (adjectival, adjective, attributive, comparative, comparatively, relative, relatively). (various references) пропорциональный (balanced, commensurable, proportion, proportional-width, pro-rated, rateable, well-proportioned). (various references) proporcionalan (commensurable, commensurate, proportionate, well-proportioned), srazmeran (commensurable, commensurate, proportionable, proportionate, rateable, shapely). (various references) proporcional, número proporcional, en proporción. (various references) proportionell (commensurate, proportionate). (various references) uygun (acceptable, accommodating, adaptable, adequate, advisable, agreeable, allowable, answerable, applicable, apposite, appropriate, apropos, apt, becoming, befitting, calculated, comely, commensurate, comparative, compatible, concordant, conformable, congenial, congruent, congruous, consistent, convenient, cool, correct, decent, done, due, eligible, enjoyable, equal, expedient, fair, fair enough, favorable, favourable, felicitous, fine, fit, fitted, fitting, for, in place, keen, likely, lovely, made to order, matching, meet, nice, opportune, permitting, pertinent, pleasant, proper, propitious, prosperous, pursuant, relevant, ripe, seasonable, seemly, Square, suitable, suited, tailormade, up to, well, well-matched), orantılı sayı, orantılı miktar, orantılı (commensurate, comparative, mean), oranlı (commensurate, pro rata, rational), orana göre, nispi. (various references) розмірний (dimensional, proportionate), член пропорції, пропорційний (balanced, clean-limbed, commensurable, proportionable, proportionate, proportioned, ratable, rateable, shapely). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "proportional": proportionalities, proportionality, proportionally, proportionals. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "proportional": disproportional. (additional references) | |
| |
"Proportional" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: porportional, propoprtional, proportioa, proportionable. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| Expression | Similar | Related | Narrower | Broader |
| Elections | Practical politics Proportional representation | Presidential elections Primaries | ||
| Political representation | Proportional representation | |||
Source: the U.S. Library of Congress and various crossword puzzle references. | ||||
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "proportional" (pronounced prupô"rshunul) |
| 5 | -sh u n u l | aberrational, additional, binational, coeducational, compositional, computational, concessional, conditional, confessional, conformational, confrontational, congregational, congressional, connotational, constitutional, conventional, conversational, correctional, denominational, depositional, devotional, dimensional, directional, dysfunctional, educational, emotional, exceptional, factional, fictional, fluxional, foundational, fractional, functional, generational, gravitational, improvisational, informational, inspirational, institutional, instructional, intentional, intergenerational, international, investigational, Invitational, irrational, jurisdictional, motivational, multinational, national, navigational, nonprofessional, nontraditional, nutritional, obsessional, occupational, operational, optional, organizational, processional, professional, promotional, rational, recreational, relational, representational, rotational, sectional, sensational, situational, supranational, traditional, transformational, transitional, transnational, unconditional, unconstitutional, unconventional, unemotional, unintentional, unprofessional, untraditional, vocational. |
| 4 | -u n u l | abdominal, aboriginal, Arsenal, attitudinal, biphenyl, cantonal, Cardinal, collisional, criminal, delusional, diagonal, divisional, doctrinal, duodenal, erosional, gastrointestinal, hexagonal, impersonal, interpersonal, intestinal, juvenile, latitudinal, longitudinal, luminal, marginal, medicinal, nominal, noncriminal, occasional, octagonal, original, personal, phenomenal, polygonal, provisional, regional, retinal, seasonal, seminal, sentinel, subliminal, superregional, terminal, virginal. |
| 3 | -n u l | adrenal, anal, annal, annul, atonal, autumnal, carnal, channel, Colonel, communal, cornel, Darnel, departmental, diurnal, empanel, eternal, external, faunal, fennel, final, flannel, fraternal, funnel, hormonal, Hymnal, impanel, infernal, internal, journal, kennel, kernel, maternal, monoclonal, monsoonal, morainal, nocturnal, panel, paternal, penal, polyvinyl, renal, semifinal, shrapnel, signal, spinal, tonal, tribunal, tunnel, vaginal, venal, vernal, Vinal, vinyl. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-i-l-n-o-o-o-p-p-r-r-t" | |
-2 letters: proportion. | |
-3 letters: apportion, proration. | |
-4 letters: oppilant, optional, oratorio, pliotron, poltroon, pronator, troopial. | |
-5 letters: airport, appoint, atropin, oration, ortolan, patroon, platoon, polaron, portion, pronota, rapport. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-i-l-n-o-o-o-p-p-r-r-t" | |
+1 letter: proportionals. | |
+2 letters: proportionable, proportionably, proportionally. | |
+3 letters: disproportional, proportionality, proportionately. | |
+5 letters: proportionalities. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Quotations: Speeches | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Vocabulary: Related 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
