impropriety

Noun

impropriety (countable and uncountable, plural improprieties)

1. (uncountable) The condition of being improper.
   • If so many ladies of rank wrote books, there could be no impropriety in her following their example,...1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages...
   • To see the impropriety of this noninformative prior, note that the posterior results (2.19)–(2.22) can be justified by as [sic] combining the likelihood function with the following ‘prior density’: […]2003, Gary Koop, Bayesian Econometrics (John Wiley & Sons Ltd.), p. 23

   Synonyms:

   dishonour, indecency, unseemliness, immorality, improbity, undecency, ungodliness, unhonour, unprobity, unpropriety

2. (countable) 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...1978, Richard Nixon, RN: the Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 421
   • Still, public confidence in the CDC continued to be shaken by allegations in the press, and U.S. Senator Lowel Weicker […] grew concerned about the suspected improprieties.1986 February 15, Elizabeth Pincus, “The CDC: When Politics & Egos Hamper Saving Lives”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 39, page 1
3. Improper language.