Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Improperly |
ImproperlyAdverb1. In an improper way; "he checked whether the wound had healed improperly". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "improperly" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
| Antonym: properly (adv). (additional references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Oliver Goldsmith | The malicious sneer is improperly called laughter. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | This is the bacterium that occurs in improperly canned foods and honey. (references) | |
Both cooked and uncooked foods may be implicated if improperly handled. (references) | ||
They tended to be small, underpowered, improperly controlled, and incompletely described. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Paraguay | The decision held that the trial judge improperly had failed to consider evidence favorable to Benitez. (references) |
Russia | On August 21, the Vakhitovskiy regional court found that the authorities had acted improperly in decreeing the transfer of the Jewish students. (references) | |
Uzbekistan | However, later in the month the CRA found that the Catholic Sunday school was not a formal institution, had been closed improperly, and should be allowed to reopen. (references) | |
Economic History | Nicaragua | Especially on the Atlantic Coast, many titles were improperly or fraudulently registered. (references) |
Georgia | Several disputes involving local investors have centered on alleged illegal or improperly handled privatization and bankruptcy proceedings. (references) | |
Spain | The countries that are primarily used by U.S. companies, and to whom Customs statistics are improperly allocated are, by order of importance: Holland, U.K and France. (references) | |
Human Rights | Burma | The case eventually was dismissed for having been filed improperly. (references) |
Guatemala | In May the Constitutional Court determined that the Supreme Court had acted improperly in not renewing the judges' contracts. (references) | |
Peru | In September a congressional investigative panel found that former intelligence advisor Montesinos had improperly influenced cases. (references) | |
Minorities | Croatia | Also, contrary to the law, the state pension fund unilaterally and improperly denied some pension applications from ethnic Serbs. (references) |
Political Rights | Bosnia and Herzegovina | In March the OSCE's Election Appeals Subcommittee cited 13 parties for improperly filing financial disclosure reports from the November 2000 elections. (references) |
Iran | The Council of Guardians disqualified numerous candidates, which led to criticism from many observers that the Government improperly predetermined the election results. (references) | |
Trade | Jamaica | The Jamaica Bureau of Standards has in the past taken steps to block the sale of goods which had been improperly labeled. (references) |
Botswana | Implementation at Botswana's borders has been especially problematic with delayed refund checks, improperly collected processing fees, and long border delays especially at the main Botswana - South Africa border post. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Greece | Court rulings have mandated the reinstatement of improperly fired union members. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place. "I had an ovation!" the actor man said, But I thought it uncommonly queer, That people and critics by him had been led By the ear. The Latin lexicon makes his absurd Assertion as plain as a peg; In "ovum" we find the true root of the word. It means egg. Dudley Spink |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Improperly" is generally used as an adverb (general) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Improperly" is used about 119 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 |
| Adverb (general) | 100% | 119 | 29,501 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; 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. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
dismounted improperly partition | 5 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "improperly"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Chinese | 不正当地. (various references) | |
Danish | patenter udnyttes uretmaessigt eller bringes til en uberettiget tredjemands kundskab (patents are improperly used or come to the knowledge of an unauthorised person), ordre deling af de uretmaessigt sammensluttede virksomheder eller aktiver (to order separation of the undertakings or assets improperly concentrated), det ved gennemfoerelsen af programmet uretmaessigt anvendte beloeb (the amounts improperly devoted to carrying out the programme), den uretmaessigt opnaaede besParelse i omkostningerne vedroerende arbejdskraften (saving in labour costs improperly effected). (various references) | |
Dutch | verhandeling van oneigenlijk verkregen rechten (trading rights that were improperly generated), op de kosten van de arbeid ten onrechte bespaard bedrag (saving in labour costs improperly effected), octrooien worden onrechtmatig toegepast of komen ter kennis van een niet bevoegde derde (patents are improperly used or come to the knowledge of an unauthorised person), de scheiding van de ondernemingen of activa,welke onrechtmatigverenigd zijn,gelasten (to order separation of the undertakings or assets improperly concentrated), de bedragen,welke onrechtmatig zijn aangewend voor de uitvoering van het programma (the amounts improperly devoted to carrying out the programme). (various references) | |
French | vente de permis émis sans contrepartie (trading rights that were improperly generated), redressement des questions improprement formulées (rectification of questions formulated improperly), ordonner la séparation des entreprises ou des actifs indûment réunis (to order separation of the undertakings or assets improperly concentrated), les sommes indûment consacrées à la réalisation du programme (the amounts improperly devoted to carrying out the programme), des brevets sont utilisés indûment ou viennent à la connaissance d'un tiers non autorisé (patents are improperly used or come to the knowledge of an unauthorised person), économies de frais de main-d'oeuvre indûment réalisées (saving in labour costs improperly effected). (various references) | |
German | unpassende (inappropriately, inappropriateness, incongruity, ineptly), ungeeignet (inappropriate, inappropriately, ineligible, inexpedient, unaptly, uneligible, unfit, unfitted, unmeet, unsuitable, unsuitably, unsuited). (various references) | |
Greek | τα ποσά που κακώς διετέθησαν για την πραγματοποίηση του προγράμματος (the amounts improperly devoted to carrying out the programme), οικονομίες σε έξοδα εργατικού δυναμικού οι οποίες επραγματοποιήθησαν αντικανονικώς (saving in labour costs improperly effected), διπλώματα ευρεσιτεχνίας χρησιμοποιούνται αντικανονικώς ή περιέρχονται σε γνώση μη εξουσιοδοτημένου τρίτου (patents are improperly used or come to the knowledge of an unauthorised person), διατάσσει το διαχωρισμό των επιχειρήσεων ή των στοιχείων ενεργητικού που συνεκεντρώθησαν αντικανονικά (to order separation of the undertakings or assets improperly concentrated). (various references) | |
Hungarian | helytelenül (amiss, falsely, ill, mistakenly, off the beam, unduly, wrong, wrongly). (various references) | |
Italian | ordinare la separazione delle imprese o degli attivi indebitamente raggruppati (to order separation of the undertakings or assets improperly concentrated), le somme indebitamente destinate all'attuazione del programma (the amounts improperly devoted to carrying out the programme), economie indebitamente conseguite sul costo della mano d'opera (saving in labour costs improperly effected), brevetti sono utilizzati indebitamente o vengono a conoscenza di un terzo non autorizzato (patents are improperly used or come to the knowledge of an unauthorised person). (various references) | |
Korean | 부적당하게 (inadequately, inappropriately, Inaptly). (various references) | |
Manx | riggyl (half-castrated ram, improperly castrated ram). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | improperlyay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | impropriamente. (various references) | |
Romanian | fãrã decenţã, abuziv (abusive, abusively, arbitrary, illegal, illegally, improper, scurrilous), în mod impropriu. (various references) | |
Russian | неправильно (mis-, unduly). (various references) | |
Spanish | indecorosamente, indecentemente (vulgarly), indebidamente, incorrectamente (all wrong, incorrectly, out, wrong), impropiamente (Amiss), sin honor, deshonestamente. (various references) | |
Swedish | oriktigt (incorrectly, wrong). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | неправильно (abnormally, awry, crosswise, incorrectly, out-of-truth, unduly, wrong), непристойно (obscenely). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "improperly" (pronounced i'mprÄ"perlē) |
| 7 | -p r Ä" p er l ē | properly. |
| 3 | -er l ē | bitterly, brotherly, circularly, cleverly, lawyerly, disorderly, eagerly, easterly, elderly, entirely, extracellularly, fatherly, formerly, gingerly, grandfatherly, grandmotherly, irregularly, leisurely, linearly, masterly, miserly, motherly, neighborly, northeasterly, northerly, northwesterly, orderly, overly, painterly, particularly, peculiarly, popularly, quarterly, regularly, scholarly, similarly, singularly, soberly, somberly, southerly, spectacularly, tenderly, utterly, Weatherly, westerly. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-i-l-m-o-p-p-r-r-y" | |
-2 letters: implorer, improper, properly. | |
-3 letters: implore, loppier, lorimer, merrily, polymer, primely, primero, priorly, pyrrole, rippler. | |
-4 letters: employ, limper, lipper, lopper, moiler, mopery, mopier, mopper, pimple, pimply, polypi, popery, prelim, primer, primly, priory, propel, proper, propyl, pylori, pyrope, pyrrol, rimple, ripely, ripper, ripple, ripply, romper, ropery, ropier, ropily. | |
-5 letters: eyrir, impel, imply, limey, lippy, loper, loppy. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-i-l-m-o-p-p-r-r-y" | |
+2 letters: peremptorily. | |
| 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. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Quotations: Familiar | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Rhymes 10. Anagrams 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
