convention definition

English convention definition

Etymology

Recorded since about 1440, borrowed 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/, /ˌkɒnˈvɛn.ʃən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

convention (countable and uncountable, 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^[1]:

     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, rule, 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.

   Table seatings are generally determined by tacit convention, not binding formal protocol.

   The convention of driving on the right is reinforced by law.

   • 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.)

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

French convention definition

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin conventiōnem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.vɑ̃.sjɔ̃/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

convention f (plural conventions)

1. convention, agreement
2. convention (formal meeting)

   la 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, the current goes from positive to negative.

Derived terms

• convention collective

Related terms

• conventionalisme m
• conventionnel
• conventionner
• convenir

Further reading

• “convention”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.