[7]
The second sense
in which the word propriety is used occurs when
there are a number of things all called by the same
name: in this case the original term from which
the others are derived is styled the proper term.
[p. 201]
For example, the word vertex means a whirl of
water, or of anything else that is whirled in a like
manner: then, owing to the fashion of coiling the
hair, it comes to mean the top of the head, while
finally, from this sense it derives the meaning of
the highest point of a mountain. All these things
may correctly be called vertices, but the proper use
of the term is the first. So, too, solea and tuidus
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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