conversation
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌkɒn.vəˈseɪ.ʃn̩/
ipa: [ˌkʰɒɱ.vəˈseɪ.ʃn̩]
ipa: /ˌkɑn.vəɹˈseɪ.ʃən/
ipa: [ˌkʰɑɱ.vɚˈseɪ.ʃn̩]
ipa: /–ˈzeɪ.ʃən/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈkɔnvə(r)ˌseʃən/
note: Indic
ipa: /kənvə(r)ˈseʃən/
note: Indic
ipa: /-zeʃən/
rhymes: -eɪʃən
Forms: form: conversations
Etymology: From Middle English conversacioun, from Old French conversacion and its etymon, Latin conversātiōnem, accusative singular of conversātiō (“conversation”), from conversor (“abide, keep company with”). Doublet of conversazione.
Morphologically converse + -ation.
Senses: examples: text: I had an interesting conversation with Nicolas yesterday about how much he's getting paid.
text: You need to improve conversation in foreign languages.
text: Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.
ref: 1699, William Temple, Heads designed for an essay on conversations:
text: M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his shoulders. “A little conversation!” / “Conversation—that’s it!” murmured Mademoiselle Noémie, who had caught the word. “The conversation of the best society.” / “Our French conversation is famous, you know,” M. Nioche ventured to continue.
ref: 1876 June, Henry James, Jr., “The American”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXXVII, number CCXXIV, Boston, Mass.: H[enry] O[scar] Houghton and Company; New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, chapter I, page 655, columns 1–2:
text: When this conversation was repeated in detail within the hearing of the young woman in question, and undoubtedly for his benefit, Mr. Trevor threw shame to the winds and scandalized the Misses Brewster then and there by proclaiming his father to have been a country storekeeper.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill.[…]Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion—or rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: A little less conversation, a little more action please / All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me
ref: 1968, Mac Davis, Billy Strange, “A Little Less Conversation”, performed by Elvis Presley:
synonyms: banter
chat
chinwag
dialogue
discussion
interlocution
powwow
table talk
glosses: Expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking.
topics: fencing
government
hobbies
lifestyle
martial-arts
military
politics
sports
war
glosses: The back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
networking
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: The protocol-based interaction between systems processing a transaction.
examples: text: Yt chaunſed thatt a whole yere they had their converſacion with the congregacion there / and taught moche people in ſomoche thatt the diſciples off Antioche wer the fyrſt that wer called Chriſten.
ref: 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Actes off the Apostles xj:[26], folios clxxi, recto – clxxi, verso:
glosses: Interaction; commerce or intercourse with other people; dealing with others.
examples: text: Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Hebrews 13:5:
text: There are many that take no heed what happeneth to others by bad conversation, and therefore overthrow themselves in the same manner through their own fault, not foreseeing dangers manifest.
ref: 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
text: I have desired him to inquire after Lovelace's life and conversation in town.
ref: 1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XXVII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; […], →OCLC:
glosses: Behaviour, the way one conducts oneself; a person's way of life.
examples: text: criminal conversation
text: Ariadne[…]quitted her Lover Theseus, for the tumultuous Conversation of Bacchus.
ref: 1723, Charles Walker, Memoirs of the Life of Sally Salisbury:
text: Our travellers had happened to take up their residence at a house of exceeding good repute, whither Irish ladies of strict virtue, and many northern lasses of the same predicament, were accustomed to resort in their way to Bath. The landlady therefore would by no means have admitted any conversation of a disreputable kind to pass under her roof. Indeed, so foul and contagious are all such proceedings, that they contaminate the very innocent scenes where they are committed, and give the name of a bad house, or of a house of ill repute, to all those where they are suffered to be carried on.
synonyms: word: aphrodisia
word: carnal knowledge
word: coitus
word: coition
word: commerce
word: commixtion
word: congress
word: conjunction
word: connection
word: consummation
word: conversation
word: copulation
word: coupling
word: intercourse
word: intimacy
word: intimate relations
word: intromission
word: joining
word: lovemaking
word: lustmaking
word: marital embrace
word: mating
word: mounting
raw_tags: for animals
word: pareunia
word: penetration
word: relations
word: sex
word: sexual congress
word: sexual intercourse
word: sexual relation
word: sexual union
word: swiving
word: union
word: the beast with two backs
word: the birds and the bees
word: boom-boom
word: chesterfield rugby
word: horizontal dancing
word: horizontal hula
word: horizontal jogging
word: horizontal mambo
word: horizontal refreshments
word: how's your father
word: love
word: Netflix and chill
word: physical love
word: roll in the hay
word: Ugandan affairs
word: Ugandan discussions
word: action
word: ass
word: bang
word: barney-mugging
word: beef injection
word: bonking
word: cuntfuck
word: fucking
word: frig
word: fucky-fucky
word: hot beef injection
word: hump
word: humpa humpa
word: jig-jig
word: jiggy-jiggy
word: lay
word: legover
word: meat injection
word: nookie
word: old hat
word: pipe
word: plow
word: plough
word: poon
word: poontang
word: punani
word: pussy
word: ride
word: root
word: rumpo
word: rumpy-pumpy
word: seeing-to
word: sexy time
word: sexy times
word: screw
word: screwing
word: shag
word: skin
word: snu snu
word: tang
word: trim
word: hanky-panky
word: funny business
word: making whoopee
word: jiggery-pokery
word: monkey business
word: fooling about
word: fooling around
word: playing around
glosses: Sexual intercourse.
examples: text: So grosse is our conuersation, and dull is our apprehension: while mortall Sense, in vs, ruleth the common wealth of our litle world.
ref: 1570, John Dee, in H. Billingsley (trans.) Euclid, Elements of Geometry, Preface
synonyms: understanding
familiarity
glosses: Engagement with a specific subject, idea, field of study etc.
Derived terms: conversationable
conversational
conversation analysis
conversation heart
conversationism
conversationist
conversationize
conversationless
conversation lozenge
conversation piece
conversation pit
conversation set
conversation-stopper
conversation stopper
convo
criminal conversation
cyberconversation
make conversation
metaconversation
midconversation
nonconversation
nonversation
protoconversation
subconversation
teleconversation
textversation
topic of conversation
Related terms: converse
conversant