Sample Sentences for
proportion
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

proportion as in:  the proportion of females

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    The proportion of women to men at my college is about 6 to 4.
    proportion = ratio (the quantity of one thing in relation to another)
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    The recommended proportion of bleach to water is different for sanitizing a kitchen counter than it is for disinfecting a toilet.
    proportion = ratio (the quantity of something in relation to something else)
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    We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would make it this far.  (source)
    proportion = share or percentage
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Show 10 more with 2 word variations
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    Maycomb's proportion of professional people ran high: one went there to have his teeth pulled, his wagon fixed, his heart listened to, his money deposited, his soul saved, his mules vetted.  (source)
    proportion = share or percentage
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    The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to commercialize genetic engineering.  (source)
    proportions = dimensions (or quantity)
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    My loyalty to my father had increased in proportion to the miles between us.  (source)
    proportion = relative amount
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    There was also something disturbing about the proportions of the rooms — the ceilings were too low for the width, the tunnels too narrow.  (source)
    proportions = dimensions
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    Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.  (source)
    proportion = share or percentage
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    Black powder is composed of three basic ingredients in roughly the following proportions: 15 percent charcoal, 10 percent sulfur, and 75 percent saltpeter.  (source)
    proportions = relative amounts (of things that go together)
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    My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery.  (source)
    proportion = portion or share
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    I stammered nervously as I introduced him to Mother, who was blending bergamot and ylang-ylang, clicking her fingers to test the proportions.  (source)
    proportions = relative amounts (of things that go together)
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    The great breast and heavy fore legs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where the muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin.  (source)
    proportion = relative amount
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    These two ingredients are mixed in equal proportions, and formed into pills.  (source)
    proportions = relative amounts
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proportion as in:  a problem of large proportion

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    It was a scandal of enormous proportions.
    proportions = size or dimension
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    It is a building of vast proportions.
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    My grandmother gave me furniture of large proportions, but my apartment is small.
    proportions = dimensions
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Show 10 more with 2 word variations
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    His ears are large beyond the proportions of his other features, as are his gnarled, meaty hands.  (source)
    proportions = sizes or dimensions
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    He stood eight centimetres short of the standard Alpha height and was slender in proportion.  (source)
    proportion = size or dimensions
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    Also, in the space of just over half a year, the Hubermanns had lost a son and gained a replacement of epically dangerous proportions.  (source)
    proportions = size or dimension
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    From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion.  (source)
    proportion = size
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    This squabble grew to the proportions of a battle in the woods between partisans of both sides, and it is said to have lasted for two days.  (source)
    proportions = dimensions (in this case, of the intensity of the disagreement)
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    The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion.  (source)
    proportion = amount
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    Ekwefi went to bring the pot and Okonkwo selected the best from his bundle, in their due proportions, and cut them up.  (source)
    proportions = amounts
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    The people possessed by hereditary right the quality of reverence, which, in their descendants, if it survive at all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished force in the selection and estimate of public men.  (source)
    proportion = amount
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    On Fifth Avenue that summer, demolition was soon to begin on the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, clearing the way for a skyscraper of unprecedented proportions, the Empire State Building.  (source)
    proportions = size or dimension
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    Her hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; her eyes were dark, but gentle, although animated; her features of a regular proportion, and her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with a lovely pink.  (source)
    proportion = size
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proportion as in:  respond in proportion

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  • •
    The punishment should be in proportion to the crime.
    proportion = an amount that is appropriate relative (to something)
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    Indeed, he had had little opportunity to be anything else, and he now seemed pleased out of all proportion at this slight notice from his master.  (source)
    proportion = appropriate amount
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    His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.  (source)
    proportion = appropriate size
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Show 10 more with 5 word variations
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    Tall and solidly proportioned, he wears wire-rimmed glasses that give him a professorial demeanor.  (source)
    proportioned = dimensioned (in relative body sizes)
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    Success was slow to come, and when it did, it was much appreciated, but the effort seemed out of proportion to the reward.  (source)
    out of proportion = not appropriate in amount
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    For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship.  (source)
    proportion = relative amount
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    There is a fine German proportioning to the room.†  (source)
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    Peter's incongruous, out-of-proportion sneeze had touched off one of his peoples' most highly developed traits: a sense of the ridiculous; a sense so keenly felt as to be almost beyond control.†  (source)
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    Huge it was, and nobly proportioned.  (source)
    proportioned = dimensioned (relative sizes)
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    I know I have my faults and shortcomings, but they blow them all out of proportion!†  (source)
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    Your emotions never seem in proportion to their objects, Aziz.  (source)
    proportion = appropriate amount
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    They alledg'd that the act was intended to load the proprietary estate in order to spare those of the people, and that if it were suffer'd to continue in force, and the proprietaries who were in odium with the people, left to their mercy in proportioning the taxes, they would inevitably be ruined.†  (source)
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    I looked like a normally proportioned person with a balloon for a head.†  (source)
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