| 释义 |
conventional, a. (and n.)|kənˈvɛnʃənəl|
[ad. L. conventiōnāl-is pertaining to a convention or agreement, f. conventiōn- convention. Cf. F. conventionnel (16th c. in Littré).]
A. adj.
1. Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a convention or assembly.
1812Ann. Reg. 1810 Pref. 3 The national, conventional, and legislative assemblies of France. 1850H. S. Foote in H. von Holst J. C. Calhoun (1884) 324 Intimating..that this Conventional movement of ours was stimulated by South Carolina.
2. a. Relating to, or of the nature of, a convention, compact, or agreement; settled by a convention or compact between parties. In Law: Founded on actual contract (opposed to legal or judicial).
1583T. Stocker Civ. Warres Lowe C. ii. 5 a, Rightes, Customes, Priuiledges..aswell Legale, Conuentionale, Customary, as Locale. 1592West 1st Pt. Symbol. §19 C, A pledge voluntarie or conuentionall, is a pledge diliuered by the couenant of both parties. a1676Hale Anal. Law (1739) 49 Conventional Services; as, Homage, Knights Service, Grand or petit Serjeanty. 1847Addison Law of Contracts ii. iii. §1 (1883) 593 A conventional hypothecation is that which is founded purely upon contract. 1848Wharton Law Lex., Conventional Estates, those freeholds not of inheritance or estates for life, which are created by the express acts of the parties, in contradistinction to those which are legal and arise from the operation and construction of law. 1861W. Bell Dict. Law Scot., Conventional Obligations, are obligations resulting from the special agreement of parties..in contradistinction to natural or legal obligations.
b. = conventionary.
1804Marshall Landed Property of England 3 Conventional Rents are acknowledgments reserved, by a proprietor of lands which he has thus temporarily sold—that he may have the right of convening the tenants, annually or otherwise, to his court or audit; to acknowledge him as..the reversionary proprietor, etc.
c. Of the nature of an international convention.
1883Pres. Arthur in Pall Mall G. 4 Dec. 8/1 In the absence of conventional engagements, owing to the termination of the treaty of 1848. 1885Manch. Exam. 21 Mar. 5/1 Delegates of the Powers to meet in Paris to draw up a conventional Act..guaranteeing the freedom of the Suez Canal.
d. Cards. Of, pertaining to, or characterized by a convention or conventions (see prec., sense 10 b).
1864Clay Treat. Short Whist iii. 97 This method of play being as old as whist itself, it was certain, sooner or later, to be reduced to the conventional sign,—good in the lowest cards as well as in the highest—of which I now treat. 1864‘Cavendish’ Whist 51 The instructed player frequently selects one card in preference to another with the sole object of affording information. When the principle is carried thus far the play becomes purely conventional. 1884Ibid. (ed. 14) 105 The system of returning the higher of two losing cards when they are both small cards, is purely conventional. 1927M. C. Work Contract Bridge iii. 39 A..baldly arbitrary and conventional scheme for handling strong two-suiters. 1958Everyman's Encycl. III. 750/1 Conventional bidding, i.e. bids to which particular meanings are attached, is now accepted as an integral part of Contract Bridge.
3. Relating to convention or general agreement; established by social convention; having its origin or sanction merely in an artificial convention of any kind; arbitrarily or artificially determined.
1761Gibbon Misc. Wks. (1814) III. 211 In matters merely conventional, examples are more powerful than principles. 1783Blair Lect. vi. (Seager), The connexion between words and ideas may in general be considered as arbitrary and conventional. 1818Cruise Digest. (ed. 2) V. 322 Proceedings of this kind were carried on by a species of conventional fraud, between the religious house and the tenant of the land. 1871W. Markby Elem. Law §120 There is known to some systems of law a sort of conventional death, or, as it is sometimes called, a civil death.
4. a. Characterized by convention; in accordance with accepted artificial standards of conduct or taste; not natural, original, or spontaneous.
1831Carlyle Sart. Res. i. vi, A tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire. 1844Stanley Arnold I. ii. 52 Breaking through the conventional phraseology with which English preaching had been so long encumbered. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 384 What they saw was a conventional imitation of philosophy.
b. Art. Consisting in, or resulting from, an artificial treatment of natural objects; following accepted models or traditions instead of directly imitating nature or working out original ideas.
1851Ruskin Stones Ven. (1874) I. App. 387 Representation is said to be conventional either when a confessedly inadequate imitation is accepted in default of a better, or when imitation is not attempted at all, and it is agreed that other modes of representation, those by figures or by symbols, shall be its substitute and equivalent. 1858Hawthorne Fr. & It. Jrnls. II. 34 Some conventional costume, never actual but always graceful and noble. 1879Sir G. Scott Lect. Archit. I. 25 In their works you find the finest specimens of conventional or imaginary foliage. 1888The Lady 25 Oct. 374/2 Some palm-trees and star-fish kind of flowers, which, I was told, were conventional lilies—classical, too, I suppose—for they were not like anything growing now.
c. Of bombs, weapons, etc.: other than nuclear; of war: fought without nuclear weapons; of power stations, etc.: using other than nuclear energy. Also transf.
[1952N.Y. Herald Tribune 21 Nov., We must decide whether the new fire package [sc. the hydrogen bomb] will permit a reduction of our more conventional military weapons. ]1955M. Beloff Foreign Policy & Democratic Process 102 The knowledge that all-out war would almost certainly mean the annihilation of organized society of the country initiating it..must enter into the calculations of modern statesmen as a deterrent to war in a way in which the limited horrors of ‘conventional war’ could not. 1955Hansard DXXXVII. 1970 This unique difference..between the hydrogen and the atomic weapon on the one hand and conventional weapons on the other. 1958Times Rev. Industry Feb. 15/1 The rate of building both nuclear and conventional stations may well increase. 1958Jane's Fighting Ships 1958–59 p. iv/1, The various admiralties and navy departments..have been shaken out of the static orbit of conventional ships, conventional propulsion and conventional weapons.
B. as n.
1. the c.: That which is conventional.
1800W. Taylor in Monthly Mag. X. 8 Happy the youth, who..lets go only the conventional and the accidental [in religion], but binds closer about him the valuable and the essential! 1837Emerson Nat., Amer. Sch. Wks. (Bohn) II. 177 Neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable from his book.
2. = conventionalist 1.
1876Morley Robespierre Crit. Misc. Ser. ii. (1877) 128 The Conventionals..were unconscious apparently that the great crisis of the drama was still to come. |