convenance
Americannoun
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convenances
plural
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suitability; expediency; propriety.
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convenances, the social proprieties or conventionalities.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of convenance
1475–85; < Anglo-French, equivalent to conven ( ir ) to be proper + -ance -ance
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:
It is equally obvious to anyone who knows Philip that he is not the type to submit meekly to the dictates of a dynastic manage de convenance.
From Time Magazine Archive
Marriages de convenance are when a parvenu barters his gold for good blood, or where an ancienne princesse mends her fortune with a nouveau riche, profound indifference, meanwhile, on each side.
From Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady Marabout's Troubles, and Other Stories by Ouida
It was a marriage of the heart, you see, and did not want the trappings with which they gild that bitter pill so often swallowed now-a-days—a "mariage de convenance."
From Beatrice Boville and Other Stories by Ouida
Our system is, in fact, gradually becoming a clumsy compromise between the mariage de convenance and the mariage d'amour, with most of the disadvantages, and very few of the advantages, of either.
From Modern Women and What is Said of Them A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) by Lucia Gilbert Calhoun
I shuddered at the idea of a mere mariage de convenance.
From Glories of Spain by Charles W. (William) Wood
She, therefore, contrives, without transgressing the higher convenances, to banish all ceremonial stiffness from her parties, and to import in its place an atmosphere of cheerful gaiety and musical refinement.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, June 28 1890 by Various
But in the case of a studio, les convenances are not so rigid but that one may look at pictures unchaperoned.”
From The Secret of Lonesome Cove by Samuel Hopkins Adams
However bold the operations, the convenances must be observed.
From Frenzied Finance Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated by Thomas William Lawson
The mere convenances of the stage will come of themselves.
From The Mapleson Memoirs, vol II 1848-1888 by James H. Mapleson
From a demure little nun she had in a few moments blossomed forth into a piquante little girl, who seemed quite ready to set the convenances at naught as long as she enjoyed herself.
From The Count's Chauffeur by William Le Queux
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.
