proportion
Syllables: pro·por·tionUK/pɹəˈpɔːʃən//pɹəˈpɔɹʃən/
proportion noun: a quantity of something that is part of the whole amount or number.
Noun
proportion (countable and uncountable, plural proportions)
- A quantity of something that is part of the whole amount or number.
- “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, the worn-out, passionless men, the enervated matrons of the summer capital,[…]!”1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VI, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
- Harmonious relation of parts to each other or to the whole.
- Proper or equal share.
- Let the women[…]do the same things in their proportions and capacities.1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […], →OCLC
- The relation of one part to another or to the whole with respect to magnitude, quantity, or degree.
- the proportion of the parts of a building, or of the body
- The image of Christ made in Pilate's time after his own proportion.1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC
- A statement of equality between two ratios.
- The "rule of three", in which three terms are given to find a fourth.
- Size.
- The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again;[…]. Now she had come to look upon the matter in its true proportions, and her anticipation of a possible chance of teaching him a lesson was a pleasure...1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
- What other television show would feature a gorgeously designed sequence where a horrifically mutated Pierre and Marie Curie, their bodies swollen to Godzilla-like proportions from prolonged exposure to the radiation that would eventually kill them, destroy an Asian city with their bare hands like...2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club
Verb
proportion (third-person singular simple present proportions, present participle proportioning, simple past and past participle proportioned)
- To divide into proper shares; to apportion.
- In order to proportion the braking force to the weight carried by a wheel - a matter of special importance in the braking of wagons - variable leverage systems are now being introduced in which the end of one axle spring is linked to a control spring in the change-over valve, so automatically...1960 April, “The braking of trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 237
- To form symmetrically.
- To set or render in proportion.
- To correspond to.
proportion meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
proportion in Tamil
- அளவு, விகிதசமம், விகிதப்படி, விழுக்காட்டளவு, வீதம், விகித சமம்
proportion in Urdu
- حصہ, نسبت, تناسب
proportion in Bengali
- অনুপাত, সমানুপাত, ঠিক অংশ, অঙ্গাঙ্গি মিল, সমান অংশ, সম্বন্ধ
proportion in Telugu
- proportion, fitness, suitableness
- పొంకము poṅkamu
More languagesFewer languages
- proportion in Malayalam
- അനുപാതം anupātaṁ
- proportion in Kannada
- ಹಾಳಿತ, ಹೊಂದಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಪಾಲುಗಳು, ಹೊಂದಿಕೆ, ಹೊಂದುವ ಅಳತೆ
- proportion in Gujarati
- પ્રમાણ
- proportion in Tagalog
- hagway
- proportion in Indonesian
- proporsi
- proportion in Vietnamese
- tỉ lệ
Examples of proportion in a sentence
- Formed in the best proportions of her sex.1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […]...
- Now she had come to look upon the matter in its true proportions, and her anticipation of a possible chance of teaching him a lesson was a pleasure to behold.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
Forms of proportion
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | proportions |
| alternative misspelling | purportion |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | proportions |
| present participle | proportioning |
| past participle | proportioned |
| past | proportioned |
Origin of proportion
From Middle English proporcion, from Old French proportion, from Latin prōportiō (“comparative relation, proportion, symmetry, analogy”), from pro (“for, before”) + portio (“share, part”); see portion. By surface analysis, pro- + portion.
Words formed from proportion
- blow out of proportion
- blow out of proportions
- compound proportion
- disproportion
- disproportionate
- divine proportion
- equiproportion
- golden proportion
- harmonic proportion
- in proportion
- inverse proportion
- misproportion
- of Koranic proportions
- out of all proportion
- out of proportion
- overproportion
- proportionable
- proportional
- proportionally
- proportionate
- proportioner
- proportionize
- proportionless
- proportionment
- reciprocal proportion
- reproportion
- superproportion
- underproportion
- unproportion
Phrases with proportion
Words that rhyme with proportion
Questions about proportion
- What does proportion mean?
- Proportion means a quantity of something that is part of the whole amount or number.
- What is proportion in Tamil?
- Proportion in Tamil is அளவு, விகிதசமம், விகிதப்படி. See Proportion meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use proportion in a sentence?
- Formed in the best proportions of her sex.
- What part of speech is proportion?
- Proportion can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce proportion?
- Proportion is pronounced /pɹəˈpɔɹʃən/ (US).
- What is the plural of proportion?
- The plural of proportion is proportions.
Words near proportion in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: proportion (page history and authors); proportion (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); proportion (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); proportion (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); పొంకము (Telugu) (page history and authors); proportion (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); proportion (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-proportion.ogg.
Cite this entry: “proportion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/proportion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.