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Webster 1913 Edition

Convention

Con-ven′tion

,
Noun.
[L.
conventio
: cf. F.
convention
. See
Convene
,
Verb.
I.
]
1.
The act of coming together; the state of being together; union; coalition.
The
conventions
or associations of several particles of matter into bodies of any certain denomination.
Boyle.
2.
General agreement or concurrence; arbitrary custom; usage; conventionality.
There are thousands now
Such women, but
convention
beats them down.
Tennyson.
3.
A meeting or an assembly of persons, esp. of delegates or representatives, to accomplish some specific object, – civil, social, political, or ecclesiastical.
He set himself to the making of good laws in a grand
convention
of his nobles.
Sir R. Baker.
A
convention
of delegates from all the States, to meet in Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of reserving the federal system, and correcting its defects.
W. Irving.
4.
(Eng. Hist)
An extraordinary assembly of the parkiament or estates of the realm, held without the king’s writ, – as the assembly which restored Charles II. to the throne, and that which declared the throne to be abdicated by James II.
Our gratitude is due . . . to the Long Parliament, to the
Convention
, and to William of Orange.
Macaulay.
5.
An agreement or contract less formal than, or preliminary to, a treaty; an informal compact, as between commanders of armies in respect to suspension of hostilities, or between states; also, a formal agreement between governments or sovereign powers;
as, a postal
convention
between two governments
.
This
convention
, I think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; a truce without a suspension of hostilities.
Ld. Chatham.
The
convention
with the State of Georgia has been ratified by their Legislature.
T. Jefferson.

Webster 1828 Edition

Convention

CONVENTION

,
Noun.
[L. See Convene.]
1.
The act of coming together; a meeting of several persons or individuals.
2.
Union; coalition.
3.
An assembly. In this sense, the word includes any formal meeting or collection of men for civil or ecclesiastical purposes; particularly an assembly of delegates or representatives for consultation on important concerns, civil, political or ecclesiastical. In Great Britain, convention is the name given to an extraordinary assembly of the estates of the realm, held without the kings writ; as the assembly which restored Charles II. to the throne, and that which declared the throne to be abdicated by James II. In the United States, this name is given to the assembly of representatives which forms a constitution of government, or political association; as the convention which formed the constitution of the United States in 1787.
4.
An agreement or contract between two parties, as between the commanders of two armies; an agreement previous to a definitive treaty.

Definition 2024

convention

convention

English

Noun

convention ‎(plural conventions)

  1. A meeting or gathering.
    The convention was held in Geneva.
    • 2012 May 30, Katherine Stewart, “How Christian fundamentalists plan to teach genocide to schoolchildren”, in the Guardian:
      The CEF and the legal advocacy groups that have been responsible for its tremendous success over the past ten years are determined to "Knock down all doors, all the barriers, to all 65,000 public elementary schools in America and take the Gospel to this open mission field now! Not later, now!" in the words of a keynote speaker at the CEF's national convention in 2010.
  2. A formal deliberative assembly of mandated delegates.
    The EU installed an inter-institutional Convention to draft a European constitution
  3. The convening of a formal meeting.
  4. A formal agreement, contract or pact.
  5. (international law) A treaty or supplement to such.
    The Vienna convention at the Vienna Congress (1814-15) standardized most of diplomatic conduct for generations
  6. A practice or procedure widely observed in a group, especially to facilitate social interaction; a custom.
    • 1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 127:
      In order to account for this, we might propose to make the Prepositional Phrase an optional constituent of the Verb Phrase: this we could do by re-
      placing rule (28) (ii) by rule (40) below:
      (40)      VP → V AP (PP)
      (Note that a constituent in parentheses is, by convention, taken to be
      optional.)
    Table seatings are generally determined by tacit convention, not binding formal protocol
    The convention of driving on the right is reinforced by law.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

French

Etymology

Borrowing from Latin conventio, conventionem.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /kɔ̃.vɑ̃.sjɔ̃/

Noun

convention f ‎(plural conventions)

  1. convention, agreement
  2. convention (formal meeting)
    ta convention sur l’avenir de l’Europe‎
    the convention on the future of Europe
  3. convention (conventionally standardised choice)
    Par convention, le courant va du plus vers le moins.‎
    By convention, a currant goes from positive to negative.

Related terms

Etymology

Recorded since c. 1440, a borrowing from Middle French convention, from Latin conventiō ‎(“meeting, assembling; agreement, convention”), from conveniō ‎(“come, gather or meet together, assemble”), from con- ‎(“with, together”) + veniō ‎(“come”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /kənˈvɛn.ʃən/, /ˈkɒnˌvɛn.ʃən/

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