DISPROPORTION • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Disproportion

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noun

Disproportion n.

Want of proportion in form or quantity; lack of symmetry; as, the arm may be in disproportion to the body; the disproportion of the length of a building to its height.

Want of suitableness, adequacy, or due proportion to an end or use; unsuitableness; disparity; as, the disproportion of strength or means to an object.

verb

Disproportion v. t. (past & past part. disproportioned; pres. part. disproportioning) To make unsuitable in quantity, form, or fitness to an end; to violate symmetry in; to mismatch; to join unfitly. "To shape my legs of an unequal size; To disproportion me in every part." "A degree of strength altogether disproportioned to the extent of its territory."

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Etymology of 'Disproportion'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Disproportion" Quotes from Famous Books

... arguments for Free Trade; and very excellent arguments too, for all I know. But the contrast between what that orator was to the people who heard him, and what he was to the thousands of newspaper-readers who did not hear him, was so huge a hiatus and disproportion that I do not think I ever quite got over it. I knew henceforward what was meant, or what might be meant, by a Scene in the House, or a Challenge from the Platform, or any of those sensational events which take place in the newspapers and ...

— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... things often appear greater to us at distance than near at hand, I have found, that being well, I have had maladies in much greater horror than when really afflicted with them. The vigour wherein I now am, the cheerfulness and delight wherein I now live, make the contrary estate appear in so great a disproportion to my present condition, that, by imagination, I magnify those inconveniences by one-half, and apprehend them to be much more troublesome, than I find them really to be, when they lie the most heavy upon me; I hope to find death ...

— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... spoils the game of humour; the sputter and sparkle of their made jokes interferes with that luminous contemplation of the incongruities of life and the universe which is humour's essence. All that is ludicrous depends on some disproportion: Comedy judges the actual world by contrasting it with an ideal of sound sense, Humour reveals it in its true dimensions by turning on it the light of imagination and poetry. The perception of these incongruities, which are eternal, demands some expense of intellect; a cheaper amusement may be ...

— Style • Walter Raleigh

... way, mother; he has taken me," said Diana, half laughing at what seemed to her the disproportion between her mother's passion and ...

— Diana • Susan Warner

... numbers bear to the numbers of the rural population does not exceed one to six, whereas the urban population of the Atlantic border is not less than one to three of the rural. This disproportion of city and rural population will hereafter change more rapidly in favor of the interior than the Atlantic cities, because of the greater fertility of soil producing more food from an equal amount of labor; and also, by reason of the more rapid growth of the general population, ...

— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

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