conventionality
Americannoun
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conventionalities
plural
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conventional quality or character.
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adherence to convention.
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a conventional practice, principle, form, etc.
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conventionalities, conventional rules of behavior.
noun
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the quality or characteristic of being conventional, esp in behaviour, thinking, etc
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(often plural) something conventional, esp a normal or accepted rule of behaviour; propriety
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of conventionality
First recorded in 1825–35; conventional + -ity
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:
But when intellectuals refuse to render moral judgments, when they sink into safe conventionality, that in itself is a kind of judgment.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2025
Isaacs’s Jay has processed his loss by throwing himself into action and activism, which bears more than a little resemblance to the task-oriented conventionality of Birney’s Richard.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 13, 2021
Maes, meanwhile, grew up bucking against a “controlling mother,” Kapur writes, and the narrow conventionality of Flanders.
From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2021
The conventionality of “Happiest Season” might be the most radical thing about it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 24, 2020
I suspect that inside the impenetrable fortress of conventionality he’s become, there’s one crazy-ass museum.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
Because it’s a novel by Dag Solstad, none of these conventionalities are entered into.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 15, 2018
A fawning Harvard Business Review case study published in 2017 cast conventionalities like “paying full-time salaries and being focused on traditional employment” as “substantial disadvantages.”
From Slate ● Mar. 1, 2018
This is writing of a high order, and Berlinski demonstrates a continuous awareness of those heights—his conventionalities are superior to many writers’ originalities.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 21, 2016
"When you get older, these conventionalities don't seem to matter anymore, and you feel more comfortable doing what you want--as long as you enjoy it and can make some money at it."
From Time Magazine Archive
Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
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.
