CONVENTIONAL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Conventional

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kənvˈɛnʃənəl/ Listen

adjective

Conventional adj.

Formed by agreement or compact; stipulated. "Conventional services reserved by tenures upon grants, made out of the crown or knights' service."

Growing out of, or depending on, custom or tacit agreement; sanctioned by general concurrence or usage; formal. "Conventional decorum." "The conventional language appropriated to monarchs." "The ordinary salutations, and other points of social behavior, are conventional."

(Fine Arts)

(a)

Based upon tradition, whether religious and historical or of artistic rules.

(b)

Abstracted; removed from close representation of nature by the deliberate selection of what is to be represented and what is to be rejected; as, a conventional flower; a conventional shell. Cf. Conventionalize, v. t.

See images of 'Conventional'

Etymology of 'Conventional'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Conventional" Quotes from Famous Books

... deprived man of one single joy; mournful faces and a sombre aspect are the conventional ...

— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... Witan stand out as distinct powers, each of which needs the assent of the other to its acts, and which may always refuse that assent. The political work of the last two hundred years has been to hinder these direct collisions between King and Parliament by the ingenious conventional device of a body of men who shall be in name the ministers of the Crown, but in truth the ministers of one House of Parliament. We do not understand our own political history, still less can we understand the position and the statesmanship of the Conqueror, unless we fully take in what ...

— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... to do with her. You see, I had to go up to London, because of my cousin's illness—Sister Nora, you know—and it was in the middle of the night, and I was afraid the dear old soul would be uncomfortable at the Towers." She made some pretence of languid indifference to conventional precisions, and of complete superiority to scruples about confessing an error, by adding:—"Most likely I was wrong. One is, usually. But it never seems to matter.... Let's see—what was I saying? Oh—how very kind it was of you to solve the difficulty for me.... ...

— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... pessimistic, more depressing than its predecessor. Alixe could have wept. Her companion placed his hand on her arm. His fingers burned; she moved, but she felt his will controlling her mood. With high relief she heard the music end. There was conventional applause. Alixe restlessly peered into the auditorium. Again she saw opera-glasses turned toward the box. "Our good friends," she rather bitterly thought. Rentgen recognized her ...

— Visionaries • James Huneker

... back by asserting that the universe has always existed. To use the phrase of Ardigo, human thought is only able to conceive the chain which binds effects to causes as terminating at a given point, purely conventional.[27] ...

— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri

More quotes...