apropos

English

WOTD – 9 September 2008

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from French à propos (on that subject).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˌæp.ɹəˈpəʊ/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˌæp.ɹəˈpoʊ/
  • (file)
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -əʊ

Adjective

apropos (comparative more apropos, superlative most apropos)

  1. Of an appropriate or pertinent nature.
    • 1877, Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson, Journey into the Interior of the Earth, Chapter VI,
      Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Leipzig. Nothing could be more apropos.
    • 2008 December, Anne Valdespino, “Mr. Stox”, in Orange Coast, volume 34, number 12, ISSN 0279-0483, page 139:
      Served outside the shell and sliced in bite-sized pieces, it's as apropos for a first date as a business dinner.
  2. by the way, incidental.
    • 1877, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
      Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

Synonyms

Translations

Preposition

apropos

  1. Regarding or concerning.
    • 2011, Jeremy Harding, "Diary", London Review of Books, 33.VII:
      Few have the same root and branch obsession with the recent past or the avenger’s recall (‘the necessity for long memory and sarcasm in argument’, as he wrote apropos the old left intelligentsia in New York).

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

apropos

  1. By the way.
  2. Timely; at a good time.
  3. To the purpose; appropriately.

Translations

Anagrams


Danish

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from French à propos.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /apropo/, [apʰʁ̥opʰo], [ɑpʰʁ̥opʰo]

Noun

apropos n (singular definite aproposet or apropos'et, plural indefinite aproposer or apropos'er)

  1. aside

Inflection

Preposition

apropos

  1. apropos (regarding or concerning)

Adverb

apropos

  1. apropos

German

Etymology

Borrowed from French à propos.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [apʀoˈpoː]
  • (file)

Adverb

apropos

  1. apropos

Synonyms

Further reading

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