1641 Ld. Digby Speeches High Court Parl. 16 Wicked Ministers have bin the proximate causes of our miseries.

1661 J. Glanvill Vanity of Dogmatizing xii. 114 We hastily conclude that impossible, which we see not in the proximate capacity of its Efficient.

1713 R. Nelson Life Dr. George Bull xxxiii. 190 Whether one call this Power the remote and fundamental, or the proximate Power of Free-will.

1771 T. Smollett Humphry Clinker I. 127 The proximate cause of her breach with Sir Ulic Mackilligut.

1792 G. Crabbe Let. 5 Sept. in Sel. Lett. & Jrnls. (1985) i. 45 The discovery of the cause (the proximate cause) of muscular motion which has so long puzzled physiologists, is an important communication.

1825 Lancet 10 Dec. 373/1 The proximate cause of cholic is said to be spasm of the intestine.

1881 B. F. Westcott & F. J. A. Hort New Test. in Orig. Greek II. Introd. iii. 219 Readings that are explicable by the supposition of a common proximate original.

1927 Jrnl. Amer. Chem. Soc. 49 3061 Our work indicates that the proximate cause of superacidity in a solution is an abnormally high value of the hydrogen-ion activity.

1969 Jrnl. Biol. Chem. 244 4075/2 Present evidence does not favor 3-hydroxyuric acid as a proximate oncogen.

2002 Econ. & Polit. Weekly 20 Apr. 1525/3 The proximate trigger was the Gulf war in the second half of 1990–91, which jacked up international oil prices.

1784 E. Cullen tr. T. Bergman Physical & Chem. Ess. I. p. xxxix The marine acid..contains phlogiston as a proximate principle [L. principii proximi].

1831 T. P. Jones New Conversat. Chem. xxviii. 282 Sugar, starch, and gum are proximate principles, and these we obtain by proximate analysis.

1848 H. Watts tr. L. Gmelin Hand-bk. Chem. I. 110 Metamerism. This term is applied by Berzelius to the case in which the compound atoms of two chemical compounds containing the same elementary atoms..are nevertheless made up of different proximate elements.

1857 W. A. Miller Elements Chem. III. i. 6 The separation of wheat flour into starch, sugar, gluten, ligneous fibre, and oily matter, affords an instance of proximate analysis.

1948 W. C. Dampier Hist. Sci. (ed. 4) vii. 256 The proteins..are easily broken down into a number of proximate constituents known as amino-acids.

1971 M. F. Mallette et al. Introd. Biochem. ix. 314 The crude lipid of the proximate analysis found on..certain food labels refers to the nonvolatile material derived by weighing the residue after evaporation of the extraction solvent.

2004 Ambix 51 222 Klaproth found the following proximate principles in lapis lazuli: silica (46 %), alumina (14.5 %), [etc.].

1657 Sir T. Browne Nature's Cabinet Unlock'd ix. 175 Its [sc. cartilage's] use is multifarious: for first, it is a certain stay and prop, and makes the proximate parts more stable.

1725 I. Watts Logick iii. iii. §3 So substance is the remote genus of bird or beast; because it agrees not only to all kinds of animals, but also to things inanimate..But animal is the proximate or nearest genus of bird, because it agrees to fewest other things.

1755 S. Johnson Dict. Eng. Lang. Pref. Words are seldom exactly synonimous... It was then necessary to use the proximate word, for the deficiency of single terms can very seldom be supplied by circumlocution.

1836 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 39 138 Parts of the..valley are distinguished by [the name] of some proximate village.

1864 E. B. Pusey Daniel (1876) i. 27 Crete, with which both Assyria and Tyre were in proximate intercourse.

1957 G. E. Hutchinson Treat. Limnol. I. xvii. 881 The possibility will therefore be explored of considering the waters of lakes as containing two proximate organic fractions.

1985 G. T. Nurse et al. Peoples of Southern Afr. viii. 216 The proximate ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews were part of an emigration which established Ashkenazi communities in several parts of the world.

1992 Sci. Amer. Nov. 17/3 Nobody is forgetting about the most proximate star.

a1831 J. Stoddart Gram. in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) I. 61/1 A distinct form of imperative for the proximate and distant future.

1862 C. Merivale Hist. Romans under Empire VII. lxiii. 197 In choosing him for their prince, the nobles..may have looked to another proximate vacancy.

1889 Science 4 Oct. 228 The enormous consumption of petroleum and natural gas..raises the question as to the..proximate exhaustion of the supply.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses iii. xvii. [Ithaca] 657 The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Réaumur: the incipient intimations of proximate dawn.

1978 N.Y. Mag. 3 Apr. 16/1 Donald Cammell's film takes place in the proximate future when a giant computer with a hypertrophic brain outwits the human beings running it.

1998 A. Fadiman Ex Libris 82 I ordered a chocolate cake to commemorate the closely proximate birthdays of my three co-Fadimans.

2004 P. de Rosa Fatal Flaw Christianity x. 249 But in view of the proximate coming of the Lord, there was no time or need for marrying and giving in marriage.