Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Out of place; inappropriate.
- adverb In an inappropriate or inopportune manner.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Inappropriate; out of place; inapt; unseasonable: as, a malapropos remark.
- Unsuitably; unseasonably.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- Unseasonable or unseasonably; unsuitable or unsuitably.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective out of place;
inappropriate
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of an inappropriate or incorrectly applied nature
- adverb at an inconvenient time
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Next day, thanks to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of "supernumerary captain's servant" -- a "post which," I give his words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would have been my destruction."
Traffics and Discoveries Rudyard Kipling 1900
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Washington particularly regretted what he called the “extreme malapropos” effect on Virginia, where the bad news from New Hampshire arrived in March just as delegates to the state ratifying convention were being chosen.
Ratification Pauline Maier 2010
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First of all, totally malapropos usage of the Public Enemy lyric quote.
First Negative Dark Knight Review - And Why It's Bullsh*t « FirstShowing.net 2008
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Washington particularly regretted what he called the “extreme malapropos” effect on Virginia, where the bad news from New Hampshire arrived in March just as delegates to the state ratifying convention were being chosen.
Ratification Pauline Maier 2010
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Washington particularly regretted what he called the “extreme malapropos” effect on Virginia, where the bad news from New Hampshire arrived in March just as delegates to the state ratifying convention were being chosen.
Ratification Pauline Maier 2010
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I have every confidence that Israel's economy would rank far higher than 20th in your malapropos IMD "stress test" were it not for the war - now in its seventh decade.
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009
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Treason, it seems, is still considered malapropos by some Democrats.
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I ought not to lose an opportunity of refuting an absurd story which has been much circulated, and which is repeated exceedingly malapropos under the article of the “Abbé Gedoyn,” upon whom the writer falls foul with great satisfaction, because in his youth he had been a Jesuit; a transient weakness, of which I know he repented all his life.
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As soon as the man of genius has made a new application of any word in the language, copyists are not wanting to apply it, very malapropos, in twenty places, without giving the inventor any credit.
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FSJ's malapropos concerning geography and language is so American!
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