conventional Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective following accepted customs and proprieties
    • conventional wisdom
    • she had strayed from the path of conventional behavior
    • conventional forms of address
  2. adjective satellite conforming with accepted standards
    established.
    • a conventional view of the world
  3. adjective (weapons) using energy for propulsion or destruction that is not nuclear energy
    • conventional warfare
    • conventional weapons
  4. adjective unimaginative and conformist
    • conventional bourgeois lives
    • conventional attitudes
  5. adjective satellite represented in simplified or symbolic form
    schematic; formal.
  6. adjective satellite in accord with or being a tradition or practice accepted from the past
    • a conventional church wedding with the bride in traditional white
    • the conventional handshake
  7. adjective satellite rigidly formal or bound by convention
    ceremonious.
    • their ceremonious greetings did not seem heartfelt

WordNet

Con*ven"tion*al adjective
Etymology
L. conventionalis: cf. F. conventionnel.
Definitions
  1. Formed by agreement or compact; stipulated.
    Conventional services reserved by tenures upon grants, made out of the crown or knights' service. Sir M. Hale.
  2. Growing out of, or depending on, custom or tacit agreement; sanctioned by general concurrence or usage; formal. "Conventional decorum." Whewell.
    The conventional language appropriated to monarchs. Motley.
    The ordinary salutations, and other points of social behavior, are conventional. Latham.
  3. (Fine Arts) (a) Based upon tradition, whether religious and historical or of artistic rules. (b) Abstracted; removed from close representation of nature by the deliberate selection of what is to be represented and what is to be rejected; as, a conventional flower; a conventional shell. Cf. Conventionalize, v. t.

Webster 1913