Word of the Day

: August 28, 2013

proximate

adjective PRAHK-suh-mut

What It Means

1 : immediately preceding or following (as in a chain of events, causes, or effects)

2 a : very near : close

b : soon forthcoming : imminent

proximate in Context

The proximate cause of the disaster appeared to be human error, but the ultimate fault lay with the company's lax safety policies.

"And while Detroit's corruption-ridden city government and unfunded pension-fund liabilities are the proximate cause of the Michigan city's bankruptcy, the root causes are far deeper." - From an article by Arthur B. Laffer and Nicholas C. Drinkwater in Investor's Business Daily, July 29, 2013

Did You Know?

You can approach a better understanding of this word, and an approximation of its history, if you recognize its two cousins in this sentence. "Proximate" derives from Latin "proximatus," itself the past participle of the verb "proximare," meaning "to approach." The noun "approximation" and both the noun and verb "approximate" derive from "proximare" (via the Late Latin verb "approximare"). "Proximare," in turn, comes from "proximus" ("nearest, next") and can be traced back to the adjective "prope," meaning "near." "Prope" is also an ancestor of the English verb "approach," as well as "proximity," "propinquity," and "reproach."