prope

Prope does two jobs and you need to see which one is running. As a PREPOSITION it takes the ACCUSATIVE and means "near, close to": prope urbem, prope me. As an ADVERB it means either "nearby" of place or, far more often in prose, "nearly, almost" of degree: prope omnes, prope factum est.

Its comparison is irregular and worth having, because the pieces are all over English. The adverbs run prope, propius, proxime; the adjectives are propior, "nearer", and proximus, "nearest, next", with no positive form of their own. Propius and proxime can themselves govern the accusative. From proximus come approximate, proximity, approach and the French prochain.

Propter grew out of prope with an added suffix and kept the local sense in propter viam, "beside the road", before drifting to "because of". Latin's other near-words are iuxta with the accusative, meaning right alongside, and ad in the sense "in the region of". Longe, "far", is the opposite number.