condition
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kənˈdɪʃn̩/
enpr: kəndĭshʹən
ipa: /kənˈdɪʃən/
rhymes: -ɪʃən
Forms: form: conditions
form: conditioning
form: conditioned
form: conditioned
Etymology: From Middle English condicioun, from Old French condicion (French condition), from Latin condicio. Unetymological change in spelling due to confusion with conditio.
Senses: examples: text: I became conditioned to the absence of seasons in San Diego.
glosses: To subject to the process of acclimation.
examples: text: They were conditioning their shins in their karate class.
glosses: To subject to different conditions, especially as an exercise.
glosses: To make dependent on a condition to be fulfilled; to make conditional on.
examples: text: Yet seas that daily gain upon the shore / Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, / And slow and sure comes up the golden year.
ref: 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Golden Year”, in Poems. […], 4th edition, volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1846, →OCLC, page 89:
glosses: To place conditions or limitations upon.
examples: text: The children were conditioned to speak up if they had any disagreements.
glosses: To shape the behaviour of someone to do something.
examples: text: Experiments on steep inclines in the United States showed that washing the rails with a detergent to remove oil and grease resulted in a marked improvement; but conditioning the rails with a special neutralising chemical completely eliminated slipping on a bank on which it was so common as to necessitate restriction of trainloads.
ref: 1956 May, “Eliminating Slipping of Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 280:
glosses: To treat, especially hair with hair conditioner.
examples: text: [P]ay me back my credit, / And I'll condition wi'ye.
ref: 1633 May 21 (licensing date), John Fletcher, James Shirley, “The Night-Walker, or The Little Thief. A Comedy.”, in Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. […], [part 2], London: […] J[ohn] Macock [and H. Hills], for John Martyn, Henry Herringman, and Richard Marriot, published 1679, →OCLC, Act II, scene viii, page 212, column 2:
text: [I]t was conditioned betweene Saturne and Titan, that Saturne being a yonger brother, and raigning (for his owne life), by Titans permiſſion, he ſhould put to death all his male children, leaſt the Titans might be interrupted by any of them in their ſucceſſion; which agreement becauſe Saturne performed in his firſt borne, it is fained that Saturne deuoured his owne children.
ref: 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], “Of Idolatrous Corruptions, Quickly Rising, and Hardly at Length Vanishing in the World: […]”, in The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, 1st book, §. V (Of the Three Chiefest Iupiters; and the Strange Storie of the Third), page 88:
glosses: To contract; to stipulate; to agree.
examples: text: divers parcel of silk conditioned or assayed
ref: 1868, Once a Week:
glosses: To test or assay, as silk (to ascertain the proportion of moisture it contains).
examples: text: to condition a student who has failed in some branch of study
topics: colleges
education
glosses: To put under conditions; to require to pass a new examination or to make up a specified study, as a condition of remaining in one's class or in college.
examples: text: "To think is thus to condition," because it is to know this or that object, and this or that object in a particular mode or condition.
ref: 1882, John Veitch, “Classification of the Laws of Knowledge—Negative and Positive Thought—Relativity”, in Hamilton, Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott and Co.; Edinburgh: W[illia]m Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 210:
glosses: To impose upon an object those relations or conditions without which knowledge and thought are alleged to be impossible.
Derived terms: air-condition
conditionability
conditionable
conditioner
miscondition
overcondition
precondition
recondition
uncondition