CONVENTIONAL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Conventional

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/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

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"Conventional" Quotes from Famous Books

... friendly hearers. This evening he did so with exceptional fervour, abounded in reminiscences, rose at moments to enthusiasm. His companions were impressed; to Irene it was an unexpected revelation of character. She had imagined young Otway dry and rather conventional, perhaps conceited; she found him impassioned and an idealist, full of hero-worship, devoted to ...

— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... crimes, and these are often considered self-exculpating inventions, inasmuch as people fear from their truth a disturbance or upsetting of the notions concerning adjudication and actionability. The mere recognition of that psychological fact alters the conventional judgment but little; the failure in these cases consists in not having prevented that automatic transition of images into actions, a transition essentially natural to our organism which ought, however, like so many other things, to be subjected to power of the will.'' Reflex ...

— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... of following in the footsteps of the classic poets, and of checking the outbursts of imagination by the rules of common sense, simply incapacitated the poets of the period from producing works of the highest order. And its insistence upon man as he appeared in the conventional, urban society of the day as the one true theme of poetry, its belief that the end of poetry was to instruct and improve either by positive teaching or by negative satire, still further limited its field. One must remember in ...

— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... declared the publication of the letters to be not only justifiable but obligatory; and if the disinterestedness of Flamel's verdict might be questioned, Dresham's at least represented the impartial view of the man of letters. As to Alexa's words, they were simply the conventional utterance of the "nice" woman on a question already decided for her by other "nice" women. She had said the proper thing as mechanically as she would have put on the appropriate gown or written the correct form of dinner-invitation. Glennard had small ...

— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton

... the newly created state centred in Denver. The city was alive with the throbbing energy of strife and speculation over mines, railway grants, and political power. Life was rapid, boisterous, and rough. Nothing had settled into the conventional grooves of habit. The whole community was fearless in its gayety. It had not learned to affect the sobriety and demureness of stupidity lest its frivolity should be likened to the crackling ...

— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

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