Dictionary

à propos de bottes en · ADV

Pronunciation

• /ˌæpɹəˌpoʊ də ˈbɑt(s)/ (General-American)
• /ˌæpɹəˌpəʊ də ˈbɒt(s)/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French à propos de bottes (literally “on the subject of boots”).

Meanings

1. (dated) Apropos of nothing; without connection to anything; by the way, unrelatedly.
   • In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster—à propos de bottes, as one may say—had already excited considerable sensation among the population of Hazeldean. 1853, Pisistratus Caxton [pseudonym; Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XI, in “My Novel”; Or Varieties in English Life […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first, page 62:
   • And suddenly, à propos de bottes, he told me about his friend and how he died to save him. 1944, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter IV, in The Razor's Edge, Pan Books 1977, page 184:
   • Suddenly, for no reason, in the middle of the night, or even in the middle of the jolliest party, she would remember an ancient floater—just like that, à propos de bottes—would remember and be overcome by a feeling of self-reproach and retrospective shame. 1925, Aldous Huxley, chapter I, in Those Barren Leaves […], London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, part I (An Evening at Mrs. Aldwinkle’s), page 9:
   • Of course, it is rather characteristic of the folk-mind, as of the child-mind, to heap up incidents à propos de bottes; but as this is one of the characteristics to be corrected in the child by his training in literature, so it is one of the faults which should exclude a fairy-tale from his curriculum. 1907, Porter Lander MacClintock, Literature in the Elementary School, Gutenberg, published 2011:
   • Suddenly jumped up; shook fist at back of ASQUITH's unoffending head, and, à propos de bottes, "wanted to know about the swindling companies and their shareholders?" 1892 May 14, “Essence of Parliament — Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M.P.”, in Punch, or the London Charivari, volume 102, 2005 Gutenberg edition
   • Analysis at that moment was in any case out of reach, because I realised that I had been left, at that moment, standing silently by Mrs Wentworth, to whom I now explained, à propos de bottes, that I knew Barnby. 1952, Anthony Powell, A Buyer's Market (A Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 2), Fontana Books, page 225
   • Moody, restless, and unhappy, he wandered like a ghost about the town, bursting into soliloquies in public places, or asking odd questions, suddenly, à propos de bottes. 1921, Lytton Strachey, “Marriage”, in Queen Victoria, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, section VI, page 138:
   • 'That is a strange remark,' said he; 'and à propos de bottes, I never continue a cigar when once the ash is fallen;[…]' 1885, Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, “Narrative of the Spirited Old Lady”, in More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 86:

Forms