conference
Americannoun
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conferences
plural
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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:
OpenAI is expected to describe technical details of the Hugging Face hack at a talk slated for Wednesday at a cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
At the news conference, Jurado appealed to Gov. Gavin Newsom to deploy additional state resources for the cleanup effort.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
Authorities are attempting to make contact with 14 people whom they have failed to reach by cell phone but are not yet presumed missing, Sheriff John Nowels told a press conference Monday.
From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026
As Warsh wrapped up last week’s postmeeting press conference, yields on long-dated Treasury bonds suddenly broke higher, while yields on short-dated Treasury notes moved lower.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 3, 2026
He’d gone to a conference put on by Merrill Lynch, right after they’d fired their CEO, Stan O’Neal, and disclosed $20 billion or so of their $52 billion in subprime-related losses.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
People are showing up in barely-there outfits to business conferences and weddings, prompting shock and discomfort among other attendees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Whether those concessions will be enough to get the two power conferences on board remains to be seen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Downing Street also held receptions for influencers and during Tim Allan's tenure as director of communications content creators were invited to Downing Street press conferences.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
One new program with $4.9 million of competitive funding available to groups to develop “civilizational self-confidence in Europe” is slated for “research, conferences, cultural engagements, and support for civil society” in wealthy democracies.
From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2026
Monday is a half-day because of parent-teacher conferences.
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
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
With two other colleagues conferenced in, they discussed the possibility of a byline strike.
From New York Times ● May 22, 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 said it had 30% growth in its channel pipeline.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025
Sharoudi became friends with Hush, who was telecommunications manager at NHS Lothian and then NHS Scotland video conferencing manager.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 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.
