impropriety

plural improprieties

1. uncountableThe 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 295–296

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   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, dishonour, immorality, improbity, indecency, undecency

2. countableAn improper act.

   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

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   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 vicious circle: the nominee would not be condemned for what he had done but for what he had been accused of having done by his detractors.

   1978, Richard Nixon, RN: the Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 421

3. countableuncountableImproper language.