All 11 Uses of
proportion
in
The Idiot
- All these concessions and rebuffs of fortune, of late, had wounded his spirit severely, and his temper had become extremely irritable, his wrath being generally quite out of proportion to the cause.†
Chpt 1.8out of proportion = not appropriate in size, amount, or degree
- "At all events, I must request you to step into the salon," said Gania, his rage rising quite out of proportion to his words, "and then I shall inquire—"†
Chpt 1.10
- "It is not a Christian religion, in the first place," said the latter, in extreme agitation, quite out of proportion to the necessity of the moment.†
Chpt 4.7 *
- Others, however, took the hint and sat down, as far as they could from the table, however; feeling braver in proportion to their distance from Nastasia.†
Chpt 1.15
- It was a plain looking knife, with a bone handle, a blade about eight inches long, and broad in proportion, it did not clasp.†
Chpt 2.3
- By the end of the third day the incident of the eccentric lady and Evgenie Pavlovitch had attained enormous and mysterious proportions in his mind.†
Chpt 2.11
- I have no sense of proportion, I know; my words and gestures do not express my ideas—they are a humiliation and abasement of the ideas, and therefore, I have no right—and I am too sensitive.†
Chpt 3.2
- And what if she torments you BECAUSE she loves you, and in proportion to her love for you, so she torments you the more?†
Chpt 3.3 *
- Though the position of all of us at that time was not particularly brilliant, and the poverty was dreadful all round, yet the etiquette at court was strictly preserved, and the more strictly in proportion to the growth of the forebodings of disaster.†
Chpt 4.4
- I have no sense of proportion either, and that is the chief thing.†
Chpt 4.7
- Then follows your unheard-of simplicity of heart; then comes your absolute want of sense of proportion (to this want you have several times confessed); and lastly, a mass, an accumulation, of intellectual convictions which you, in your unexampled honesty of soul, accept unquestionably as also innate and natural and true.†
Chpt 4.9
Definitions:
-
(1)
(proportion as in: the proportion of females) relative amount, quantity, or collectionThe exact meaning of this sense of proportion is subject to its context. For example:
- "The female proportion is 50%." -- percentage or share
- "The proportion of oil to vinegar." -- ratio (quantity of something relative to the quantity of something else)
- "In the survey, the female proportion said..." -- group
-
(2)
(proportion as in: a problem of large proportion) size or dimension
-
(3)
(proportion as in: respond in proportion) appropriate in size, amount, or degree