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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.

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Etymology of 'Conventional'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Conventional" Quotes from Famous Books

... round of conventional pleasures which the reader and his humble servant have mixed in deeply or dilettante, according to his taste or capacity for such giddy work. There was withal the usual heart-burning, heart-bartering, heart—anything ...

— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... of artists; known them intimately, and studied their lives. One and all, they date their success from some passionate experience. From a cold and conventional existence can come nothing but cold and conventional art. You left England, broke away from the common routine, from the artificial and the respectable. That was an indispensable first step, and I have told you how ...

— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... behaving to it as though it were not a representation but a thing. On it you fix your attention; with it you "unite." Yet, did you look at the wrong side, at the many short ends, the clumsy joins and patches, this simple philosophy might be disturbed. You would be forced to acknowledge the conventional character of the picture you have made so cleverly, the wholesale waste of material involved in the weaving of it: for only a few amongst the wealth of impressions we receive are seized and incorporated into our picture ...

— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... Paris lay behind him, and a steamer was taking him with much unnecessary motion across a sparkling sea towards Alexandria. Gladly he saw the Riviera fade below the horizon, with its hard bright sunshine, treacherous winds, and its smear of rich, conventional English. All restlessness now had left him. True vagabond still at forty, he only felt the unrest and discomfort of life when caught in the network of routine and rigid streets, no chance of breaking loose. He was off again at last, money scarce enough ...

— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... do not mean Etiquette. This is only a conventional set of rules adopted by what is called "good society;" and many of the rules of etiquette are of the essence of rudeness. Etiquette does not permit genteel people to recognize in the streets a man with a shabby coat though he be their ...

— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

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