different between appropriate vs beseem

English

Etymology

From Middle English appropriaten, borrowed from Latin appropriatus, past participle of approprio (“to make one's own”), from ad (“to”) + proprio (“to make one's own”), from proprius (“one's own, private”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.?t/, /??p???.p?i?.?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.?t/, /??p?o?.p?i.?t/

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.e?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.e?t/

Adjective

appropriate (comparative more appropriate, superlative most appropriate)

1. Suitable or fit; proper.
   • 1798-1801, Beilby Porteus, Lecture XI delivered in the Parish Church of St. James, Westminster

     in its strict and appropriate meaning

   • 1710, Edward Stillingfleet, Several Conferences Between a Romish Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome

     appropriate acts of divine worship
2. Suitable to the social situation or to social respect or social discreetness; socially correct; socially discreet; well-mannered; proper.
3. (obsolete) Set apart for a particular use or person; reserved.

Synonyms

• (suited for): apt, felicitous, fitting, suitable; see also Thesaurus:suitable

Antonyms

• (all senses): inappropriate

Derived terms

• appropriateness

Related terms

• proper
• property

Translations

Verb

appropriate (third-person singular simple present appropriates, present participle appropriating, simple past and past participle appropriated)

1. (transitive, archaic) To make suitable to; to suit.
   • 1790, Helen Maria Williams, Julia, Routledge 2016, p. 67:

     Under the towers were a number of gloomy subterraneous apartments with vaulted roofs, the use of which imagination was left to guess, and could only appropriate to punishment and horror.

   • 1802, William Paley, Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity

     Were we to take a portion of the skin, and contemplate its exquisite sensibility, so finely appropriated […] we should have no occasion to draw our argument, for the twentieth time, from the structure of the eye or the ear.

2. (transitive) To take to oneself; to claim or use, especially as by an exclusive right.
3. (transitive) To set apart for, or assign to, a particular person or use, especially in exclusion of all others; with to or for.
   • 2012, The Washington Post, David Nakamura and Tom Hamburger, "Put armed police in every school, NRA urges"

     “I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation,” LaPierre said.

4. (transitive, Britain, ecclesiastical, law) To annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Blackstone to this entry?)

Synonyms

• (to take to oneself): help oneself, impropriate; see also Thesaurus:take or Thesaurus:steal
• (to set apart for): allocate, earmark; see also Thesaurus:set apart

Translations

Further reading

• appropriate at OneLook Dictionary Search
• appropriate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Italian

Adjective

appropriate f pl

1. feminine plural of appropriato

English

Etymology

From Middle English besemen, bisemen; equivalent to be- +? seem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??si?m/
• Rhymes: -i?m

Verb

beseem (third-person singular simple present beseems, present participle beseeming, simple past and past participle beseemed)

1. (transitive, intransitive, archaic) With some qualifying word: to appear, seem, look.
2. (transitive, intransitive, archaic) Without any qualifying word: to be appropriate or creditable.
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act IV, Scene 7,^[1]

     Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence

     And give them burial as beseems their worth.

   • 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, London: William Jones,^[2]

     Beseemes it thee to contradict thy king?

   • 1597, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, Book 5, in The Works of Mr. Richard Hooker, London: Andrew Crook, 1666, pp. 180-181,^[3]

     Should we hereupon frame a Rule, that what form of speech or behaviour soever is fit for Suiters in a Prince’s Court, the same and no other beseemeth us in our Prayers to Almighty God.

   • 1643, Petition of the Commissioners of the Generall Assembly to the Kings Majesty, Edinburgh,^[4]

     The Nationall Assembly of this Kirk, from which we have our Commission, did promise in their thanksgiving for the many favours expressed in Your Majesties Letter, their best endeavours to keep the people under their charge, in unity and peace, and in loyalty and obedience to Your Majestie and Your Laws, which we confesse is a duty well beseeming the preachers of the Gospel […]

   • 1717, Samuel Croxall (translator), Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. Translated by the most Eminent Hands, London: Jacob Tonson, Book 6, The Story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela, p. 202,^[5]

     Her Vest, with Flow’rs of Gold embroider’d o’er,

     With Grief distress’d, the mournful Matron tore,

     And a beseeming Suit of gloomy Sable wore.

   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 5,^[6]

     “Lady,” said Cedric, “this beseems not; were further pledge necessary, I myself, offended, and justly offended, as I am, would yet gage my honour for the honour of Ivanhoe.”

Translations