Definitions

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

  • noun The exchange of thoughts and feelings by means of speech or sign language.
  • noun An instance of this.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun General course of actions or habits; manner of life; behavior: deportment, especially with respect to morals. [Obsolescent.]
  • noun Familiar intercourse; intimate acquaintance or association; commerce in social life. [Obsolescent.]
  • noun Familiar acquaintance from using or studying.
  • noun Informal interchange of thoughts and sentiments by spoken words; informal or familiar talk.
  • noun A meeting for conversation, especially on literary subjects; a conversazione.
  • noun Sexual intercourse: as, criminal conversation (which see, under criminal).

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

  • noun Archaic General course of conduct; behavior.
  • noun Familiar intercourse; intimate fellowship or association; close acquaintance.
  • noun obsolete Commerce; intercourse; traffic.
  • noun Colloquial discourse; oral interchange of sentiments and observations; informal dialogue.
  • noun Sexual intercourse.

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

  • noun fencing The back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout.
  • noun computing The protocol-based interaction between systems processing a transaction.
  • verb nonstandard, transitive, intransitive To engage in conversation (with).

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

  • noun the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French conversation, from Latin conversātiōnem, accusative singular of conversātiō ("conversation"), from conversor ("abide, keep company with").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word conversation.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • cOnveRsATION. This word could go on either Kangaroo Word list: an oration is a conversation of sorts.

    June 20, 2008