apropos

comparative more apropos · superlative most apropos · alternative à propos · alternative àpropos

1. Of an appropriate or pertinent nature.

   Served outside the shell and sliced in bite-sized pieces, it's as apropos for a first date as a business dinner.

   2008 December, Anne Valdespino, “Mr. Stox”, in Orange Coast, volume 34, number 12, →ISSN, page 139

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   Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Leipzig. Nothing could be more apropos.

   1877, Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson, Journey into the Interior of the Earth, Chapter VI

   A particularly apropos line many will remember from this film was the closing shot of a Times editorial reading "Is There No Sense of Decency?"

   1974 February 9, “Tufts Porno”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 33, page 2

2. By the way, incidental.

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   Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to [C. Auguste] 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 [Edgar Allan] Poe appeared to imagine."

   1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock & Co., part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., […]), chapter II (The Science of Deduction), page 14

   Synonyms: by the way, incidentally, incidental

alternative à propos · alternative àpropos

1. Regarding, concerning, in regard to, on the subject of.

   "Go on, Uncle Max," said Nora pleasantly. "I like to watch your exceptional mind at work. Apropos the disappearance of Geoffrey, and that big old lonely house, you were saying—?"

   1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

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   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).

   2011, Jeremy Harding, “Diary”, in London Review of Books, 33.VII

   Synonyms: about, as for

alternative à propos · alternative àpropos

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

alternative à propos · alternative àpropos

1. obsoleteuncountableFittingness, pertinence.