Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Based on or in accordance with general agreement, use, or practice; customary.
  • adjective Conforming to established practice or accepted standards; traditional.
  • adjective Devoted to or bound by conventions to the point of artificiality; ceremonious.
  • adjective Unimaginative; conformist.
  • adjective Represented, as in a work of art, in simplified or abstract form.
  • adjective Law Based on consent or agreement; contractual.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or resembling an assembly.
  • adjective Using means other than nuclear weapons or energy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In card-playing, noting any method of conveying information which is not based on the principles of the game, such as the trump signal, the American leads, etc.
  • Relating or pertaining to a convention, or formal meeting of delegates.
  • Stipulated; covenanted; established by agreement.
  • Arbitrarily selected, fixed, or determined: as, a conventional sign.
  • Arising out of custom or usage; sanctioned by general concurrence; depending on usage or tacit agreement; not existing from any natural growth or necessity; generally accepted or observed; formal.
  • Specifically In the fine arts, depending on accepted models or traditions, irrespective of independent study of nature; traditionally or purposely deviating from natural forms, although properly retaining the principles which underlie them: as, the conventional forms of birds, beasts, flowers, etc., in heraldry and on coins.
  • In law, resting in actual contract: as, the conventional relation of landlord and tenant, as distinguished from the implied obligation to pay for use and occupation, incurred by occupying another's land without agreement.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Formed by agreement or compact; stipulated.
  • adjective Growing out of, or depending on, custom or tacit agreement; sanctioned by general concurrence or usage; formal.
  • adjective Based upon tradition, whether religious and historical or of artistic rules.
  • adjective Abstracted; removed from close representation of nature by the deliberate selection of what is to be represented and what is to be rejected; Cf. Conventionalize, v. t.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Pertaining to a convention, as in following generally accepted principles, methods and behaviour.
  • adjective ordinary, commonplace
  • adjective banal, trite, hackneyed, unoriginal or cliche
  • noun finance A conventional gilt-edged security, a kind of bond paying the holder a fixed cash payment (or coupon) every six months until maturity, at which point the holder receives the final payment and the return of the principal.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective in accord with or being a tradition or practice accepted from the past
  • adjective (weapons) using energy for propulsion or destruction that is not nuclear energy
  • adjective conforming with accepted standards
  • adjective rigidly formal or bound by convention
  • adjective represented in simplified or symbolic form
  • adjective unimaginative and conformist
  • adjective following accepted customs and proprieties

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In this report the term conventional energy is used to refer to fossil fuel, nuclear energy, and large-scale hydropower.

    Chapter 7 2000

  • Now, in order to clear up some concepts, I want to tell you that when the term conventional tons of fuel is used -- sometimes the terms tons of petroleum and conventional tons are used in order for the public to understand the terns the same way all of us learned them in order to understand what a conventional ton meant -- it means 100,300 kilocalories.

    FIRST ENERGY FORMU 1984

  • The term conventional tillage refers to land preparation in which there is maximum disturbance of the soil structure.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows Francis197732 2010

  • In the speech, Mr. Bullard argued for a return to what he called the "conventional wisdom" that monetary policy, not fiscal policy, should be the primary tool for stabilizing the economy.

    More Quantitative Easing Unnecessary, Fed Official Says Ben Casselman 2012

  • What attention has been paid, primarily as part of what I term the conventional account, has it that the Framers were divided about how accessible search remedies should be.

    Arcila on the Framers' Search Power Robert L. Tsai 2009

  • ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, many people say that acupuncture does wonders for their back, and some people have expressed frustration with what you call conventional treatments, with physical therapy, with drugs.

    CNN Transcript Sep 25, 2007 2007

  • It is they who make her undergo the discomforts or miseries of what we call conventional life or bully her into exile or death.

    Popular Science Monthly Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 Anonymous

  • It is they who make her undergo the discomforts or miseries of what we call conventional life or bully her into exile or death.

    The Scientific Monthly, October-December 1915 Scientific Monthly 1915

  • In both the paper and the book she looks to the immediate legal circumstances surrounding a prosecution of a knight to find the origin of the ritual murder accusation (which she describes as a conventional rather than novel narrative, reasoned and effective; she sees little of anyone but the upper classes in it).

    In the Middle Jeffrey J. Cohen 2010

  • In theory, an effort is made in "conventional" wars to be discriminating in the infliction of war deaths.

    Death, Legal and Illegal 1974

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