Word.ws English Dictionary

propinquity

/pɹəˈpɪŋ.kwɪ.ti/

propinquity noun: nearness or proximity.

Noun

propinquity (countable and uncountable, plural propinquities)

  1. (literary) Nearness or proximity
    • Some experimental spirits could not resist the diversion of throwing Varick and his former wife together, and there were those who thought he found a zest in the propinquity.1904, Edith Wharton, The Other Two
    • Yet, never before in human history has it been so easy to communicate across long distances. Never before have men been able to maintain intimate and continuing contact with others across thousands of miles; never has intimacy been so independent of spatial propinquity.1963, Melvin M. Webber, “Order in Diversity: Community without Propinquity”, in Lowdon Wingo Jr., editor, Cities and Space: The Future Use of Urban Land, page 43
    Synonyms:
    appropinquity
  2. (literary) Affiliation or similarity.
    • Heere I diſclaime all my Paternall care, / Propinquity and property of blood, / And as a ſtranger to my heart and me, / Hold thee from this for euer.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • What is impossible is not the propinquity of the things listed, but the very site on which their propinquity would be possible.1970, Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, Routledge, translation of Les mots et les choses, published 2002, page xviii

propinquity meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

propinquity in Tamil

உடங்கு, இயற்கை நாட்டம்

propinquity in Urdu

نزدیکی, قربت

propinquity in Bengali

নৈকট্য, নিকট সম্পর্ক

propinquity in Kannada

ಸಾಮೀಪ್ಯ, ಬಾಂಧವ್ಯ, ಸಾದೃಶ್ಯ, ಹೋಲಿಕೆ, ಸಾರ‍್ಕೆ
More languagesFewer languages
propinquity in Persian
شباهت šabâhat

Examples of propinquity in a sentence

  • Surely, too, it would be a waste of an agent, for after several hours of propinquity I could scarcely fail to recognise him in the future.1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me, Penguin, published 2001, page 70:
  • There was also the question of Julius’s glandular responses to the almost daily propinquity of his Empress, so naked under her lawn.1985, Anthony Burgess, The Kingdom of the Wicked:
  • Geographical propinquity gives rise to conflicting territorial claims from Bosnia to Mindanao.1993, Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, in Foreign Affairs:
  • [A] person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person.1979, Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 86 (1979)

Synonyms of propinquity

Forms of propinquity

pluralpropinquities

Origin of propinquity

From propinqu(ent) + -ity, from Middle English propinquite, from Middle French propinquité or Latin propinquitās, from propinquus (“neighbouring”) (from prop(e) (“near”) + (h)inc (“hence”) + -uus).

Questions about propinquity

What does propinquity mean?
Propinquity means nearness or proximity.
What is propinquity in Tamil?
Propinquity in Tamil is உடங்கு, இயற்கை நாட்டம். See Propinquity meaning in Tamil.
How do you use propinquity in a sentence?
Surely, too, it would be a waste of an agent, for after several hours of propinquity I could scarcely fail to recognise him in the future.
What part of speech is propinquity?
Propinquity is a noun.
How do you pronounce propinquity?
Propinquity is pronounced /pɹəˈpɪŋ.kwɪ.ti/ (UK).
What is the plural of propinquity?
The plural of propinquity is propinquities.

Words near propinquity in the dictionary

  1. propinquative
  2. propinque
  3. propinquent
  4. propinquities
  5. propinquitous
  6. propinquity
  7. propinquous
  8. propinyl
  9. propinyls
  10. propioceptive
  11. propiolactone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: propinquity (page history and authors); propinquity (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); propinquity (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); propinquity (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); propinquity (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-propinquity.wav.

Cite this entry: “propinquity.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/propinquity. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.