impropriety

1. (uncountable) The condition of being improper.Examples: "If so many ladies of rank wrote books, there could be no impropriety in her following their example,..."; "To see the impropriety of this noninformative prior, note that the posterior results (2.19)–(2.22) can be justified by as [sic] combining the likelihood function with the following ‘prior density’: […]"uncountable

2. (countable) An improper act.Examples: "Bayh and his supporters ended up maintaining that it was no longer sufficient that a nominee had not engaged in any impropriety; now there must be no "appearance" of impropriety. Thus opponents of a nominee could raise an "appearance" of impropriety by false charges and thereby defeat him. It was a vicious circle: the nominee would not be condemned for what he had done but for what he had been accused of having done by his detractors."countable