proportion
Pluralproportions
Verbproportions, proportioning, proportioned
Pluralproportions
Formsproportions, proportioning, proportioned
- 1A quantity that forms part of a whole amount or number.
A significant proportion of the budget goes to staff salaries.
Growing proportions of voters now get their news online.
Similarpart, share, fraction, percentage, portion
Oppositewhole
Note
The sense closest to the word's Latin core: prōportiō joins pro, "for," to portio, "share, part," the root of portion as well. It names a part measured against its whole, and it usually takes of and a modifier of size: a small proportion, a significant proportion of the budget. Robert W. Chambers's The Younger Set (1907) has "only a small proportion" of a character's friends.
- 2The relation of one part to another or to the whole in size, quantity, or degree.
The proportion of cement to sand determines the strength of the concrete.
Her salary rose in proportion to her growing responsibilities.
Similarratio, relation, relationship, balance
- 3A harmonious relationship among the parts of something, or between the parts and the whole.
Classical architecture prizes proportion above ornament.
The portrait feels wrong because the figure's arms are out of proportion with the torso.
Similarbalance, symmetry, harmony
Oppositedisproportion, asymmetry, imbalance
Note
Here proportion is a quality rather than a measurement, and it is uncountable: a building has proportion, or it lacks it. The phrases in proportion and out of proportion carry the judgment, as when a figure's arms look wrong against its torso. The measured relation is neutral and can be counted. This meaning always implies that the relation is the right one.
- 4
- 5The size or dimensions of something.
The scandal soon assumed a proportion that alarmed even seasoned editors.
The warehouse fire grew to alarming proportions within an hour.
Similarsize, dimensions, magnitude, scale, extent
Note
English mostly measures size with the plural: alarming proportions, Godzilla-like proportions. An adjective of scale usually comes first, often after grow to, swell to or assume. The usage is also figurative. The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) speaks of seeing a matter "in its true proportions", meaning how large a problem really is.
- 6A statement of equality between two ratios, such as 3:4 = 9:12.
Students set up a proportion to find the missing side of the similar triangle.
The map's scale lets you write a proportion comparing inches on paper to miles on the ground.
Note
The working parts have names. In a:b = c:d, the outer terms are the extremes and the inner ones are the means. In any true proportion, the product of the means equals the product of the extremes, which is the cross-multiplication students use to find a missing value. Keep the two words apart: a ratio compares two quantities, and a proportion asserts that two ratios match.
- 7To divide and distribute something in proper shares; to apportion.
The committee will proportion the relief funds according to each county's losses.
Her will proportioned the estate among the three siblings.
Similarapportion, allocate, distribute, allot, divide
Note
The verb usually comes with a to-phrase naming the measure the shares must follow. Trains Illustrated (1960) writes of the need "to proportion the braking force to the weight carried by a wheel." Apportion is the everyday synonym when money or property is shared out. Proportion puts more weight on the shares following a rule or a ratio.
- 8To set or render the elements of a work in proper relation of size to one another.
The sculptor proportioned the statue's limbs to the scale of its head.
Architects proportion a facade by relating window heights to the spacing of the columns.
Note
An artist's or architect's verb. What gets set is relative scale, each element sized against another: limbs against the head, window heights against column spacing. It differs from forming symmetrically, which is about matching halves rather than relating sizes. The governing scheme may be observed anatomy, a modular system or an ideal canon of measurements.
- 9
Less common meanings
- 10The rule of three, a method in which three given terms are used to find a fourth.
Merchants once relied on proportion to convert prices between different weights and currencies.
The arithmetic primer devoted a full chapter to proportion, with exercises on wages, cloth, and corn.
Note
Older arithmetic gave proportion a practical job. Three terms were known, and the first stood to the second as the third stood to an unknown fourth. You multiplied the second term by the third and divided by the first to find it. The method rests on the equation of two ratios. Modern writers say rule of three or solve a proportion instead.
- 11To correspond to; to match in measure or degree.
The knight's sorrow proportioned his guilt, deepening with every league he rode.
Let the punishment proportion the offense, the magistrate declared.
Note
An archaic transitive use in which one thing answers another in measure, as when the punishment proportions the offense. It takes a direct object with no to, and that is what makes it sound old. Modern prose says be proportionate to, match or correspond to. Save this use for period pastiche, since it belongs to early modern and eighteenth-century writing.
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Practice
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Origin
The word came into Middle English as proporcion from Old French proportion, which came from Latin prōportiō ('comparative relation, proportion, symmetry, analogy'). The Latin word combines pro ('for, before') with portio ('share, part').