What does conventional mean?

Definitions for conventional
kənˈvɛn ʃə nlcon·ven·tion·al

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word conventional.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. conventionaladjective

    following accepted customs and proprieties

    "conventional wisdom"; "she had strayed from the path of conventional behavior"; "conventional forms of address"

  2. conventional, establishedadjective

    conforming with accepted standards

    "a conventional view of the world"

  3. conventionaladjective

    (weapons) using energy for propulsion or destruction that is not nuclear energy

    "conventional warfare"; "conventional weapons"

  4. conventionaladjective

    unimaginative and conformist

    "conventional bourgeois lives"; "conventional attitudes"

  5. conventional, formal, schematicadjective

    represented in simplified or symbolic form

  6. conventionaladjective

    in accord with or being a tradition or practice accepted from the past

    "a conventional church wedding with the bride in traditional white"; "the conventional handshake"

  7. ceremonious, conventionaladjective

    rigidly formal or bound by convention

    "their ceremonious greetings did not seem heartfelt"

Wiktionary

  1. conventionaladjective

    Pertaining to a convention, as in following generally accepted principles, methods and behaviour.

  2. conventionaladjective

    ordinary, commonplace

  3. conventionaladjective

    banal, trite, hackneyed, unoriginal or cliche

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. Conventionaladjective

    Stipulated; agreed on by compact.

    Etymology: from convention.

    Conventional services reserved by tenures upon grants, made out of the crown or knights service. Matthew Hale, Com. Law. of Engl.

Wikipedia

  1. conventional

    A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms, or criteria, often taking the form of a custom. In a social context, a convention may retain the character of an "unwritten law" of custom (for example, the manner in which people greet each other, such as by shaking each other's hands). Certain types of rules or customs may become law and sometimes they may be further codified to formalize or enforce the convention (for example, laws that define on which side of the road vehicles must be driven). In physical sciences, numerical values (such as constants, quantities, or scales of measurement) are called conventional if they do not represent a measured property of nature, but originate in a convention, for example an average of many measurements, agreed between the scientists working with these values.

ChatGPT

  1. conventional

    Conventional refers to something that is usual, traditional, or generally accepted and followed by most people. It often describes things that follow established rules, standards, or methods. It can also refer to ideas, behavior, or practices that conform to prevailing societal norms and expectations.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Conventionaladjective

    formed by agreement or compact; stipulated

  2. Conventionaladjective

    growing out of, or depending on, custom or tacit agreement; sanctioned by general concurrence or usage; formal

  3. Conventionaladjective

    based upon tradition, whether religious and historical or of artistic rules

  4. Conventionaladjective

    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

  5. Etymology: [L. conventionalis: cf. F. conventionnel.]

Editors Contribution

  1. conventional

    Legislation created with the agreement or consent of people.

    She always used conventional wisdom to explain their reasoning.


    Submitted by MaryC on November 9, 2019  

Matched Categories

British National Corpus

  1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'conventional' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #2546

  2. Adjectives Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'conventional' in Adjectives Frequency: #344

Usage in printed sourcesFrom: 

How to pronounce conventional?

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of conventional in Chaldean Numerology is: 7

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of conventional in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9

Examples of conventional in a Sentence

  1. Jonathan Tasini:

    It's both astonishing and understandable, the understandable part is, too many journalists are too enthralled with conventional wisdom and establishment thinking. They just repeat things without any notion of what's happening on the ground.

  2. John Kenneth Galbraith:

    The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.

  3. Tom Roseen:

    While investors were keeping a keen eye on the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting, which concluded on Wednesday on a more hawkish note than some anticipated, taxable-fixed income mutual funds took in small amounts of net new money - $348 million-plus, with ETF investors ... withdrawing $700 million, interestingly, though, both investors types were net purchasers of municipal bond funds, injecting $877 million into conventional open-end funds and $314 million for ETFs, respectively.

  4. Facebook Inc:

    Our goal with live video is to work with our partners to move to a sustainable monetization model quickly, we are not focused on acquiring the rights to conventional TV programs.

  5. Frederik Pleitgen:

    This a full on conventional war using heavy weapons that can hit frontline areas but also civilian places anytime.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

conventional#1#5273#10000

Translations for conventional

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"conventional." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 11 Feb. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/conventional>.

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