Unappropriate

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Unsuitable or not fitting for a particular situation or purpose, lacking appropriateness or properness in context
2. Not conforming to accepted standards or expectations, being improper or ill-suited for the circumstances
3. Characterized by a failure to meet social or contextual norms, indicating inappropriateness or unfitness for a specific use or occasion

Etymology: "Unappropriate" is a word that English speakers rarely use, and its construction is more straightforward than its tangled look suggests. It combines the prefix "un-", meaning "not," with "appropriate," the adjective, so it means not appropriate. Its near-twin is "inappropriate," and the two are what linguists call a doublet: two forms that arose from the same source but took different routes into English, with "in-" and "un-" both expressing negation. The adjective "appropriate" goes back to the Latin "appropriatus," the past participle of "appropriare," which meant to make something one's own. The sense of "suitable" grew out of that idea of belonging to a particular situation, so a thing that is appropriate fits its context as if made for it. The un- prefix is the everyday English negator, found in words like "unfit" and "unsafe." Attaching it to "appropriate" produced a form that carries the same meaning as the more common "inappropriate," though it is considerably less frequent in print.