Correct or appropriate behavior

Usage examples of propriety.

Yet he continued his occasional game of billiards with Priss and when the two met they behaved with complete propriety.

Wifelike, she straightened his now mostly buttonless shirt into some semblance of propriety.

Just then Miss Matty, who had been out all the morning, and had only lately returned to the house, burst in with a face of dismay and outraged propriety.

His alarm lest I should misconceive his position with regard to his mistress, or question the propriety of her conduct, touched me particularly.

His lordship distinguished with great propriety and precision, between a step which had been precipitately taken in a violent crisis, when the public was heated with apprehension and resentment, and a solemn law concerted at leisure, during the most profound tranquility.

Valancourt, was now scarcely endurable, and, since propriety would not suffer her to send to the chateau of his brother, she requested that Theresa would immediately hire some person to go to his steward from herself, and, when he asked for the quarterage due to her, to make enquiries concerning Valancourt.

Lady Rangle cared nothing for propriety when so great a catch as the very rich brother of a Viscount was involved.

Lord knew how many other representatives from the finest families he had offended with this schoolboyish slap in the face to propriety.

Even in England, he said, where the frequent return of elections was attended with great inconvenience, the propriety of the septennial bill might justly be doubted.

The skirts of the gown were stiffened with tarlatan, which gave the dress a degree of formality even without the hourglass shape imposed by stays, and Arabella after a swift glance in the long mirror decided she had sacrificed enough comfort in the interest of sartorial propriety for one day.

An unbottling of martial spirits fermenting inside all that propriety?

And how his great devotion mocks Our poor propriety, and scares The undevout with paradox!

The brows drew in, the black eyes hardened with a cold narrowing of mistrust: even before he spoke he saw she had read the story of his profligate extravagance, and that from that moment the hard propriety of her suspicious soul had been turned against him with that virtuous dislike which such people feel for unmoneyed men.

Deviation from scenic propriety has only to vituperate itself for the consequences it generates.

Joe Bulder smoked a good deal more than was good for him, and anathematised those scoundrels of jumpers with more fervency than propriety.