• Apropos

    Pronunciation

    • UK IPA: /ˌæp.ɹəˈpəʊ/
    • US IPA: /ˌæp.ɹəˈpoÊŠ/
    • Rhymes: -əʊ

    Alternative forms

    Origin

    Borrowing from fr à propos.

    Full definition of apropos

    Adjective

    apropos

    1. Of an appropriate or pertinent nature.
      • 1877, Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson, , ,Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Leipzig. Nothing could be more apropos.
    2. by the way, incidental.
      • 1877, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to 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 Poe appeared to imagine."

    Synonyms

    Preposition

    1. Regarding or concerning.
      • 2011, Jeremy Harding, "Diary", London Review of Books, 33.VII: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).

    Antonyms

    Adverb

    adverb

    1. By the way.
    2. Timely; at a good time.

    Anagrams

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