Now learn the difference, at your proper cost,
Betwixt true valor and an empty boast. --Dryden.
2. Belonging to the natural or essential constitution;
peculiar; not common; particular; as, every animal has his
proper instincts and appetites.
Those high and peculiar attributes . . . which
constitute our proper humanity. --Coleridge.
3. Befitting one's nature, qualities, etc.; suitable in all
respect; appropriate; right; fit; decent; as, water is the
proper element for fish; a proper dress.
The proper study of mankind is man. --Pope.
In Athens all was pleasure, mirth, and play, All
proper to the spring, and sprightly May. --Dryden.
4. Becoming in appearance; well formed; handsome. [Archaic]
``Thou art a proper man.'' --Chaucer.
Moses . . . was hid three months of his parents,
because they saw he was a proper child. --Heb. xi.
23.
5. Pertaining to one of a species, but not common to the
whole; not appellative; -- opposed to {common}; as, a
proper name; Dublin is the proper name of a city.
6. Rightly so called; strictly considered; as, Greece proper;
the garden proper.
7. (Her.) Represented in its natural color; -- said of any
object used as a charge.
{In proper}, individually; privately. [Obs.] --Jer. Taylor.
{Proper flower} or {corolla} (Bot.), one of the single
florets, or corollets, in an aggregate or compound flower.
{Proper fraction} (Arith.) a fraction in which the numerator
is less than the denominator.
{Proper nectary} (Bot.), a nectary separate from the petals
and other parts of the flower. -- {Proper noun} (Gram.), a
name belonging to an individual, by which it is
distinguished from others of the same class; -- opposed to
{common noun}; as, John, Boston, America.
{Proper perianth} or {involucre} (Bot.), that which incloses
only a single flower.
{Proper receptacle} (Bot.), a receptacle which supports only
a single flower or fructification.