prəˈprīəd.ē, prōˈ-, -ətē, -i, by r- dissimilation pəˈ- noun
( -es )
Etymology: Middle English propriete, from Middle French proprieté quality or trait belonging to a person or thing, property — more at property
1.
a. obsolete : peculiar, proper, or true nature, character, or condition
the baseness of thy fear that makes thee strangle thy propriety — Shakespeare
b. obsolete : special nature : peculiarity
2.
a. obsolete : private ownership : proprietorship
b. obsolete : privately owned possessions : property
3.
a. obsolete : a special characteristic of a language : idiom
b. obsolete : precise literal or strict sense
4. : the quality or state of being proper or fitting : suitability , fitness , appropriateness
not so easy to see the propriety in an image which divests a snake of “winter weeds” — T.S.Eliot
propriety and necessity of preventing interference with the course of justice by premature statement, argument, or intimidation — O.W.Holmes †1935
5.
a. : the standard of what is socially acceptable in conduct, behavior, speech : decorum
passionately, deeply devoted to propriety … one of the most formal high United States officers in Europe — Time
many of the topics denied by propriety to the newspaper's columns are considered suitable in a barbershop atmosphere — G.S.Perry
often : prudent regard for or fear of offending against conventional rules of behavior especially as between the sexes
a long-ago love affair and the dead Welsh girl who was too innocent-hearted for his propriety — Time
in her re-creation of the Victorian age she antedates … the victory of bourgeois propriety over the more raffish and glaring manners of the Regency — R.E.Roberts
b. proprieties plural : the customs and manners of polite society : conventionally correct behavior — used with the
they talked the stupid, polite conversation that occurs between strangers; and then, the proprieties satisfied, … drifted back into the realm of music — Louis Bromfield
feels compelled to observe the established proprieties of textbook writing — J.C.Cooley