What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Conversation vs Convention - What's the difference?

conversation | convention |

As nouns the difference between conversation and convention

is that conversation is expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking while convention is a meeting or gathering.

As a verb conversation

is to engage in conversation (with).

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

    * ----

    convention

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A meeting or gathering.
  • The convention was held in Geneva.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=May 30 , author=Katherine Stewart , title=How Christian fundamentalists plan to teach genocide to schoolchildren , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=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.}}
  • A formal deliberative assembly of mandated delegates
  • ''The EU installed an inter-institutional Convention to draft a European constitution
  • The convening of a formal meeting
  • A formal agreement, contract or pact
  • (international law) A treaty or supplement to such.
  • ''The Vienna convention at the Vienna Congress (1814-15) standardized most of diplomatic conduct for generations
  • A generally accepted principle, method or behaviour.
  • *
  • 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.)
    ''Table seatings are generally determined by tacit convention , not binding formal protocol
    The convention of driving on the right is reinforced by law.

    Derived terms

    * by convention * coding conventions * conventional, conventionally * conventionalize * conventioneer * convention centre, convention center * naming convention * pictorial convention * trade convention