conformity

American  

[kuhn-fawr-mi-tee] / kənˈfɔr mɪ ti /

noun

conformities plural

1. action in accord with prevailing social standards, attitudes, practices, etc.

2. correspondence in form, nature, or character; agreement, congruity, or accordance.

3. compliance or acquiescence; obedience.

4. (often initial capital letter) compliance with the usages of an established church, especially the Church of England.

5. Geology. the relationship between adjacent conformable strata.

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conformity British  

/ kənˈfɔːmɪtɪ /

noun

1. compliance in actions, behaviour, etc, with certain accepted standards or norms

2. correspondence or likeness in form or appearance; congruity; agreement

3. compliance with the practices of an established church

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conformity Cultural  

1. Agreement between an individual's behavior and a group's standards or expectations. A conformist is one who follows the majority's desires or standards. (See also beatniks, bureaucrat, organization man (see also organization man), peer group, and peer pressure.)

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• anticonformity
  noun
• hyperconformity
  noun
• preconformity
  noun
• semiconformity
  noun
• superconformity
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• conformities
  plural

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

conformity conformities

A sport cannot function seriously on a world scale without such conformity, and a World Cup - launched in 1963 and contested every four years since - needed that.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

Over time, the profession begins to sort for ideological conformity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

When such state threats are systematized, they can foment a broader climate of fear, self-censorship and conformity.

From Salon ● May 28, 2026

In a May 5 ruling seen by AFP, the court said VW "failed in its obligation of conformity" by selling nearly 950,000 vehicles equipped with the devices in France between 2007 and 2015.

From Barron's ● May 12, 2026

“Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her position and prospects?”

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Director Milos Forman was shaped by European sensibilities but his films were shrewd and intimate portraits of the yearnings, transgressions, politics, sexual fascinations, rebelliousness and complicated conformities that soothed, rattled and challenged the American spirit.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2018

In particular, Garnett thoroughly scorned “commercialism, the insularity of the English, their demand that literature should merely endorse prevailing social norms and conformities, the expectation of ‘healthy optimism’ and a happy ending.”

From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2018

For these seekers after truth, “the woods” became, like “the greenwood” in Merrie England, the place where an individual could truly savour the mysteries of life, free from the restricting conformities of church and state.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 24, 2017

“Our contexts are not the same, our struggles are not the same, and so our rebellions and complacencies and conformities and compromises cannot be compared.”

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 6, 2017

It was all the more exasperating to see and hear Hinze's reception of her well-bred conformities.

From Impressions of Theophrastus Such by Eliot, George

Related Words

• obedience