Other forms: improprieties
Impropriety is behaviour that breaks the accepted standards. Any impropriety, financial impropriety, a hint of impropriety.
It is the formal word in inquiries and denials, and it is doing careful work: an impropriety is a breach of standards rather than of law, so denying any impropriety denies more than denying a crime would. The plural is improprieties.
1nounimproprietyBehaviour that breaks the accepted standards.
“The minister resigned after accusations of financial impropriety.”
impropriety is a breach.
Latin improprietas, in-, not, plus proprietas, fitness or ownership, from proprius, one's own.
Proto-Indo-European
*preyH-
Latin
improprietās
French
impropriété
English, today
impropriety
From French impropriété, from Latin improprietās. by surface analysis, improper + -iety or im- + propriety.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA