conformity
Americannoun
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action in accord with prevailing social standards, attitudes, practices, etc.
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correspondence in form, nature, or character; agreement, congruity, or accordance.
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compliance or acquiescence; obedience.
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(often initial capital letter) compliance with the usages of an established church, especially the Church of England.
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Geology. the relationship between adjacent conformable strata.
noun
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compliance in actions, behaviour, etc, with certain accepted standards or norms
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correspondence or likeness in form or appearance; congruity; agreement
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compliance with the practices of an established church
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of conformity
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English conformite, from Middle French, from Late Latin confōrmitās; equivalent to conform + -ity
Explanation
If all your friends wear jeans to school and you wear checkered slacks, you could say you reject conformity — doing the same thing as everyone else. Conformity usually refers to people's behavior or looks, but it can also be used to describe something that matches the form of something else — for example, a one-story house built in conformity to the low-slung buildings that surround it. It's common for conformity to follow the word in.
Vocabulary lists containing conformity
Power Prefix: con-
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Grade 10, List 5
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Conformity, a value preached to me by many coaches and team captains, is a winning strategy.
From Salon • Sep. 22, 2024
An EU directive, which took effect in 2006, required the use of an EU-wide "CE" mark which stands for Conformité Européenne - French for "European Conformity".
From BBC • Jan. 5, 2022
Conformity can help explain why vaccine skeptics tend to cluster in certain communities.
From Scientific American • Sep. 3, 2019
Conformity is designed to make filing easier for taxpayers and enforcement easier for revenue agencies, said Robert Zahradnik, who studies state fiscal policy at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
From New York Times • Jan. 28, 2018
The Scientific Law by which this takes place is the Law of Conformity to Type.
From Natural Law in the Spiritual World by Drummond, Henry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
