conventionalism
Americannoun
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adherence to or advocacy of conventional attitudes or practices.
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something conventional, as an expression or attitude.
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Philosophy. the view that fundamental principles are validated by definition, agreement, or convention.
noun
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advocacy of or conformity to that which is established
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something conventional
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philosophy a theory that moral principles are not enshrined in the nature of things but merely reflect customary practice
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philosophy the theory that meaning is a matter of convention and thus that scientific laws merely reflect such general linguistic agreement
Other Word Forms
- anticonventionalism noun
- conventionalist noun
Etymology
Origin of conventionalism
First recorded in 1825–35; conventional + -ism
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.
Yet if authenticity and consistency are among Spayd’s virtues, her vices include obtuse logic, shoddy epistemology, and the sort of common-sense conventionalism that a public editor ought to be challenging rather than championing.
From Slate • Apr. 14, 2017
Amy is madly contemptuous of the apparently stifling conventionalism to which Kim has yielded.
From The New Yorker • Jul. 17, 2015
Juliet is expressing the theory we call conventionalism: that a name for something is just an agreed-upon convention.
From Slate • Sep. 21, 2014
The philosopher Michael Dummett claimed that it involved full-blooded conventionalism, while Crispin Wright argued for its strict finitism.
From The Guardian • Nov. 9, 2012
It was destined to be misunderstood, or taken too literally because your ideas are opposed to conventionalism.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
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.
