What it means
Proper is the go-to intensifier meaning very, really, or completely. In everyday chat you stick it in front of almost anything to crank the volume: proper good, proper tired, proper buzzing, proper raging. It can also keep its old-school sense of genuine or correct, like a proper cuppa or a proper job. Big in Yorkshire and across the UK, and dead useful.
Usage examples
"It’s proper brass monkeys out, but I’ve gotta nip to t’ shop for milk. If I don’t get a brew, I’ll be proper mardy."
"She turned up to the school run in pyjamas and slippers, looked proper knackered after the night feeds, but waved at all the mums like nothing was up."
"By half ten we were proper soaked through, the rain came sideways for an hour straight, and the dog refused to leave the puddle outside the pub door."
Where it comes from
Proper landed in English from old French propre, which itself came from the Latin proprius for one's own. The everyday use as an intensifier took hold in the North and the Midlands centuries ago, and the rest of the country borrowed it back from the regions, where the word kept its bite while down south it went a bit polite.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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