What a great word. I don't think I've heard that word in decades, or even seen it in print until my good friend Melissa used it in a recent email: "It's so apropos because today is the one year anniversary..."
The word appropriate fits as a more common synonym; even the word suitable, but how much more pleasant sounding is the word apropos?
Of course it is French in origin, which makes it pleasant sounding. Apropos should be part of a Lerner and Lowe lyric in Camelot for Robert Goulet to sing as Lancelot. "C'est moi...It's apropos I slay my foe..."
The OED tells us it can be an adverb, adjective, noun, or preposition. The first definition offered is as an adverb, meaning to the point, fittingly, opportunely; as an adjective: pertinent, appropriate, opportune; as a noun: an opportune or pertinent occurrence; as a preposition: concerning with regard to.
I guess as a preposition it never caught on to be used in legal documents, or we would have heard it more often: "...as it concerns apropos to the first party..."
For any word to gain traction it has to be uttered on the news, Saturday Night Live, or coming from a political candidate or a sports figure uttering a sound byte. Without that exposure the word will never make a weekly shake down by Ben Zimmer in the Wall Street Journal weekend edition. who this week treats us to a dissertation on "hurkle-durkle, which apparently means loitering in bed in Scotland or on Tik Tok.
I just don't think that's apropos to anything I've been hearing.
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