apropos
/ˌæp.ɹəˈpoʊ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.69 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of an appropriate or pertinent nature.
adj
prep
Regarding, concerning, in regard to, on the subject of.
adv
adv
Example Sentences
- "Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Leipzig. Nothing could be more apropos."
- "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?""
- "Served outside the shell and sliced in bite-sized pieces, it's as apropos for a first date as a business dinner."
- "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.""
- ""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—?""
- "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)."
Etymology
Borrowed from French à propos (“on that subject”). Similar in meaning and form, and to some extent etymology, to appropriate, but not a doublet of it.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌæp.ɹəˈpoʊ/
- British English: /ˌæp.ɹəˈpəʊ/