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Conversation vs Communicate - What's the difference?

conversation | communicate |

As verbs the difference between conversation and communicate

is that conversation is to engage in conversation (with) while communicate is to impart.

As a noun conversation

is expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking.

conversation

Noun

(en noun)
  • Expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking.
  • * 1699 , , Heads designed for an essay on conversations
  • 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.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=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.}}
  • * , chapter=12
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill.
  • (fencing) The back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout.
  • (obsolete) Interaction; commerce or intercourse with other people; dealing with others.
  • * 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Acts XI:
  • Yt chaunsed thatt a whole yere they had their conversacion with the congregacion there, and taught moche people insomoche thatt the disciples off Antioche we the fyrst that wer called Christen.
  • (archaic) Behaviour, the way one conducts oneself; a person's way of life.
  • *, New York Review of Books, 2001, p.50:
  • 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.
  • (obsolete) Sexual intercourse.
  • * 1723 , Charles Walker, Memoirs of the Life of Sally Salisbury :
  • (Ariadne)quitted her Lover (Theseus), for the tumultuous Conversation of (Bacchus).
  • * 1749 , (Henry Fielding), , Folio Society 1973, p. 333:
  • The landlady therefore would by no means have admitted any conversation of a disreputable kind to pass under her roof.
  • (computing) The protocol-based interaction between systems processing a transaction.
  • Synonyms

    * (expression and exchange of ideas through talking) banter, chat, chinwag, dialogue, discussion, interlocution, powwow, table talk

    Derived terms

    * conversational * conversation piece

    Usage notes

    * To make conversation means to start a conversation with someone with no other aim than to talk and break the silence. * To have' a conversation, and to ' hold a conversation, both mean to converse. * See

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (nonstandard, ambitransitive) To engage in conversation (with).
  • * 1983 , James Frederick Mason, Hélène Joséphine Harvitt, The French review
  • Gone now are the "high-minded" style, the "adapted from literature" feel, the voice-over narration, and the abstract conversationing about ideas, values...
  • * 1989 , Robert L Gale, A Henry James encyclopedia
  • ...he has breakfasted me, dined me, conversationed me, absolutely caressed me. He has been really most kind and paternal...
  • * 2002 , Georgie Nickell, I Only Smoke on Thursdays
  • After all this conversationing , Scottie, my usual dance partner, was getting antsy and wanted to dance.

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    communicate

    English

    Verb

    (communicat)
  • To impart
  • # To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) (to) someone; to make known, to tell.
  • It is vital that I communicate this information to you.
  • # To impart or transmit (an intangible quantity, substance); to give a share of.
  • to communicate motion by means of a crank
  • #* Jeremy Taylor
  • Where God is worshipped, there he communicates his blessings and holy influences.
  • # To pass on (a disease) to another person, animal etc.
  • The disease was mainly communicated via rats and other vermin.
  • To share
  • # (obsolete) To share (in); to have in common, to partake of.
  • We shall now consider those functions of intelligence which man communicates with the higher beasts.
  • #* Ben Jonson
  • thousands that communicate our loss
  • # (Christianity) To receive the bread and wine at a celebration of the Eucharist; to take part in Holy Communion.
  • #* 1971 , , Religion and the Decline of Magic , Folio Society 2012, p. 148:
  • The ‘better sort’ might communicate on a separate day; and in some parishes even the quality of the communion wine varied with the social quality of the recipients.
  • # (Christianity) To administer the Holy Communion to (someone).
  • #* Jeremy Taylor
  • She [the church] may communicate him.
  • # To express or convey ideas, either through verbal or nonverbal means; to have intercourse, to exchange information.
  • Many deaf people communicate with sign language.
  • I feel I hardly know him; I just wish he'd communicate with me a little more.
  • # To be connected (with) (another room, vessel etc.) by means of an opening or channel.
  • The living room communicates with the back garden by these French windows.
  • Hyponyms

    * See also