Disproportional (or disproportionate) means out of balance compared to what's normal, expected, or fair. When something is disproportional, one part is too large or too small relative to another.

In a drawing class, if you sketch a person with a huge head and tiny body, the proportions are off: the head is disproportionately large. In a group project where one person does 90% of the work while three others do almost nothing, that workload is disproportional to the number of people involved.

The word often points to unfairness or imbalance. If a student gets detention for a week because they were two minutes late to class, that punishment seems disproportionate to the offense: the consequence is way harsher than the mistake deserves. If a basketball team wins 95-12, that's a disproportionate score showing how mismatched the teams were.

You'll also hear about disproportional responses or reactions. When someone screams at their sibling for accidentally bumping their arm, that's a disproportionate reaction: the anger is much bigger than the situation warrants. Scientists and economists use the word to describe imbalances in nature, populations, or resources. A disproportionate amount of something means there's either too much or too little compared to what you'd expect.