proportionality

[ pruh-pawr-shuh-nal-i-tee ]

noun

1. the fact or quality of being in proper balance or relation as to size or quantity, degree, severity, etc.:

   Even a defensive response to an unjust attack may go far beyond legitimate defense if it causes destruction that violates the principle of proportionality.

Word History and Origins

Origin of proportionality¹

First recorded in 1425–75 in a different sense; proportional ( def ) + -ity ( def )

Example Sentences

A 2012 study from researchers at BYU and Princeton discovered that women spoke much less than their proportional representation, spending roughly 75% less time talking than their male counterparts.

From Fortune

A more proportional voting system would allow those different parties to operate independently of one another.

From FiveThirtyEight

The likelihood for an algorithm to produce the expected result, is indirectly proportional to the complexity of the task it needs to complete.

From Search Engine Land

This proportional allocation would continue until every country has enough doses to vaccinate 20 percent of its population.

From Vox

Second, the area of the surface is proportional to part of the entanglement entropy between those two portions of the boundary.

From Quanta Magazine

His most recent book is Proportionality in International Law, published by Oxford University Press.

From The Daily Beast

What Rubin is arguing against—his blogpost is titled "The Perils of Proportionality"—are concepts enshrined in international law.

From The Daily Beast

International human rights law dictates that, when people protest, governments must adhere to "proportionality" in their response.

From The Daily Beast

But the question I had—which went unanswered—was this: What defines proportionality in Israeli law?

From The Daily Beast

Early in the conversation, Dershowitz stated that “Jewish justice and Israeli justice understand proportionality.”

From The Daily Beast

According to Newton's law, there is rigorous proportionality between these two coefficients.

From Project Gutenberg

There is, therefore, in small pieces a rough proportionality between size of head and size of regenerating piece.

From Project Gutenberg

He started by supposing an exact proportionality between corresponding changes in sun-spot frequency and magnetic range.

From Project Gutenberg

And now observe how well this conception falls in with the law of proportionality discovered by Newton.

From Project Gutenberg

It is only for theoretical simplification that a strict proportionality is assumed here, both in the text and the diagram.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• proportion
• quota
• rate
• scale