conference
Americannoun
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conferences
plural
-
a meeting for consultation or discussion.
a conference between a student and his adviser.
- Synonyms:
- colloquium, parley
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the act of conferring or consulting together; consultation, especially on an important or serious matter.
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Government. a meeting, as of various committees, to settle disagreements between the two branches of the legislature.
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an association of athletic teams; league.
an intercollegiate conference.
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Ecclesiastical.
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an official assembly of clergy or of clergy and laity, customary in many Christian denominations.
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a group of churches whose representatives regularly meet in such an assembly.
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verb (used without object)
noun
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a meeting for consultation, exchange of information, or discussion, esp one with a formal agenda
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a formal meeting of two or more states, political groups, etc, esp to discuss differences or formulate common policy
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an assembly of the clergy or of clergy and laity of any of certain Protestant Christian Churches acting as representatives of their denomination
the Methodist conference
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sport a league or division of clubs or teams
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rare an act of bestowal
Synonym Usage
See convention.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of conference
From the Medieval Latin word conferentia, dating back to 1530–40. See confer, -ence
Explanation
A conference is a formal get-together where people talk (or "confer") about a chosen topic, like when your office holds a conference to talk about the problem of snoring during meetings. A conference can also be a public meeting arranged for discussion, such as a press conference or a national conference for a particular group. For example, you may no longer have much interest in 18th-century coins, but you still attend the annual conference for coin collectors because it is always held at a hotel in Aruba. A conference can also refer to a sports league, such as for baseball or football.
Vocabulary lists containing conference
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
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"The Tragedy of Hamlet," Vocabulary from Act 3
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"The American Pageant," Vocabulary from Chapters 30-32
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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.
See Examples For:
Prosecutors say the device, wrapped in toilet paper, was found inserted in a USB port on the back of a TV in an executive conference room.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Dan Ivascyn of Pimco Income Fund, the world’s largest actively managed fixed-income fund, was confident in the prediction he made at a New York investment conference.
From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2026
Federal prosecutors alleged Tuesday that the suspect, a 35-year-old man named Abdulrahman Alfozan, concealed the small black device in toilet paper and hid it behind a television in an OpenAI conference room in late September.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
The research was presented at a press conference on June 17, 2026, during the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
By Tuesday, two days after the eruption, Governor Ray had already decided on the stance she would take: “Many people chose to remain close to the mountain,” she said at a press conference.
From "Mountain of Fire" by Rebecca E. F. Barone
He is allergic to the presumption that anyone, including the Fed, can fine-tune the economy, and invoked the Lucas critique at one of his first news conferences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
The Brighton Centre was used by both the Greens and Liberal Democrats to host their autumn conferences this year.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
Press conferences on consecutive days underline her message: “strong demand for more compute,” “AI is incredibly good for the world,” and “memory is overall supply-constrained.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 7, 2026
More than 30 million people watched January's college football national championship on TV while the major conferences -- regional groupings of universities that organize competition and negotiate media rights -- have signed multibillion-dollar broadcasting contracts.
From Barron's ● Sep. 29, 2026
"I'm getting sick of daily press conferences," Venkat whispered to Annie.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
He whispered to one of his attorneys while his lead lawyers, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, conferenced with the judge and prosecutors at the front of the courtroom.
From BBC ● May 18, 2026
Which gets us to that footnote, in which Justice Alito writes, “That constitutional question was argued and conferenced nearly seven months ago.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 5, 2026
Gomes telephoned his mother, who then allegedly conferenced Price into the call, prosecutors said.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 24, 2020
Buck’s petition is expected to be conferenced by the U.S.
From Time ● Apr. 20, 2016
I have already conferenced with Rae, and now Ethan’s conference is going over.
From "The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson
The video conferencing company also bumped up its guidance for the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Sharoudi joined as a director and later became friends with Hush, 68, who was telecommunications manager at NHS Lothian and then NHS Scotland video conferencing manager.
From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2025
Neufeld is in the process of fine-tuning a Zoom-based edition of “Code Green,” hoping the video conferencing service could help expose it to nonstudents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 26, 2024
It lets me record calls by conferencing in a third-party number.
From Slate ● Oct. 31, 2024
After sitting for an interview, Nilekani gave our TV crew a tour of Infosys’s global conferencing center—ground zero of the Indian outsourcing industry.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
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.
