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What is "disproportionate"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
disproportionate
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
amount
▪ Television also received a disproportionate amount of public attention in the press and parliamentary debate.
▪ Clearly in simple population terms the older age groups account for a disproportionate amount of health care expenditure.
▪ Many people feel that packaging creates a disproportionate amount of litter.
▪ The Home Secretary is receiving a disproportionate amount of attention from the press for the action that he has taken.
▪ But just as all doctors have patients who consume disproportionate amounts of time so we have papers that slow us down.
▪ Marshall had taken to calling it the rumour factory because a disproportionate amount of time seemed to be wasted on chatter.
▪ Complicated things are never robust and things that are not robust require a disproportionate amount of attention.
▪ Grossly disproportionate amounts of money per pupil for each system reinforced these differences.
influence
▪ Capitalists command disproportionate influence over state agencies and funding for public campaigns.
▪ New Hampshire, with a population of only 1. 1 million, has long had a disproportionate influence on presidential politics.
▪ New Hampshire unquestionably possesses a disproportionate influence over the nominating process.
number
▪ A disproportionate number of these patients were elderly.
▪ Also in Medicaid, the budget proposed to reduce payments to hospitals that serve a disproportionate number of poor patients.
▪ A disproportionate number of visits in the late evening were to young children.
▪ Long-term residents affected While seniors account for a disproportionate number of owner move-in evictions, other long-term residents are also affected.
▪ The graduate assignments the following year were reportedly very disappointing, with a disproportionate number being sent to rural areas.
▪ The reality is that Americahas a disproportionate number, though still a minority, of very heavily armed people.
▪ For example it was highlighted that a disproportionate number of Black women remained in refuge accommodation for longer periods before they were rehoused.
▪ It arose out of genuine social issues, not because there was a disproportionate number of prejudiced personalities living in the locality.
power
▪ Now a generation of southern Republicans, brought up resenting the interfering ways of the federal government, is wielding disproportionate power.
▪ In both houses, the reformers claimed, committee chairmen exercised disproportionate power.
▪ Mr Hattersley said giving disproportionate power to small, minority centre parties would not improve democracy.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Children who disrupt lessons at school take up a disproportionate amount of the teacher's time.
▪ The report shows that a disproportionate number of black women do unskilled, low-paid work.
▪ The richest areas of the country are getting a disproportionate share of government grants.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Clough was small in stature with disproportionate physical strength and powers of endurance.
▪ For years, the female tilt toward the Democrats was balanced by disproportionate white male support for Republicans.
▪ In both houses, the reformers claimed, committee chairmen exercised disproportionate power.
▪ Nationally, a disproportionate 48 percent of all foster children are minorities.
▪ Some fields get disproportionate funds, he opined, while others go hungry.
▪ They are equally aware that achieving the last few percentage points in performance of ten causes a disproportionate increase in costs.
▪ Yet what our little coterie suffered was, I believe, disproportionate to our vices.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Disproportionate

Disproportionate \Dis`pro*por"tion*ate\, a. Not proportioned; unsymmetrical; unsuitable to something else in bulk, form, value, or extent; out of proportion; inadequate; as, in a perfect body none of the limbs are disproportionate; it is wisdom not to undertake a work disproportionate means. -- Dis`pro*por"tion*ate*ly, adv. -- Dis`pro*por"tion*ate*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
disproportionate

1550s, from dis- "not" + proportionate. Improportionate in same sense is from late 14c. Related: Disproportionately.

Wiktionary
disproportionate

  1. 1 Not proportionate. 2 Out of proportion. v

  2. (context chemistry English) To undergo disproportionation

WordNet
disproportionate

  1. adj. out of proportion [syn: disproportional] [ant: proportionate]

  2. not proportionate

Usage examples of "disproportionate".

He never threw off from himself that disproportionate accumulation of aestheticism which is the burden of the amateur.

It seemed that even in her absence, Julia had taken up a disproportionate amount of space in the house on Balmoral Avenue.

A disproportionate number of the new figures of authority were of the Stenos sub-breed.

No other animal, predator or scavenger, had such strength concentrated in jaw and forequarters, but it gave the hyena an ungainly disproportionate build.

They were accorded a disproportionate amount of courtesy by local policeman, who ignored cars parked in front of fire hydrants or even on the sidewalk.

The Pyrex dish she carried did not go with the rest of her, and she was staring at us with a blend of calculation and discomfort that seemed disproportionate to the collision.

Thus, when they perform the complex assessment of the risks of supporting the United States, they tend to err on the side of caution, so it often takes a disproportionate effort on the part of the United States to secure their help.

There should be edema fluid in the alveolar spaces with disproportionate autolytic change of the respiratory epithelium.

A disproportionate number of ravaged buildings had been shrines of the Four Prophets.

Murakuma had lost a battleship, three battlecruisers and six lighter units, but she'd inflicted the customary disproportionate losses and snatched 48,000 civilians from the teeth, or whatever, of the Bugs.

He was a transplanted southerner who had specialized in civil rights cases as a lawyer and had made a name for himself by suing the LAPD for its disproportionate number of cases in which black citizens died after being put in chokeholds by officers.

They have got away with it because, despite all their cock-ups over the years, MI6 is still eulogised by powerful parts of British society and wields disproportionate power in Whitehall.

It wouldn't for such a spectator have been altogether insupposable that, each so finely brown and so sharply spare, each confessing so to dents of surface and aids to sight, to a disproportionate nose and a head delicately or grossly grizzled, they might have been brother and sister.

Solon was a banking center and a disproportionate amount of the wealth belonging to the habitats in Earth and lunar orbits passed along its coded threads.

He had a malformed and disproportionate head, a head that had been too large even for a big man.