impropriety

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The condition of being improper.

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

2. 2
   noun

   An improper act.

   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. 3
   noun

   an act of undue intimacy

4. 4
   noun

   an indecent or improper act

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

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