Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To make conventional.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To render conventional; bring under the influence of conventional rules; render observant of the forms and precedents of society. Specifically
- In the fine arts, to render or represent in a conventional manner—that is, either by exact adherence to a rule or in a manner intentionally incomplete and simplified.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To make conventional; to bring under the influence of, or cause to conform to, conventional rules; to establish by usage.
- transitive verb To represent by selecting the important features and those which are expressible in the medium employed, and omitting the others.
- transitive verb To represent according to an established principle, whether religious or traditional, or based upon certain artistic rules of supposed importance.
- intransitive verb (Fine Arts) To make designs in art, according to conventional principles. Cf.
conventionalize , v. t., 2.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To make something
conventional .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb make conventional or adapt to conventions
- verb represent according to a conventional style
Etymologies
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Examples
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She was sick with love of him, and he danced with her as he would dance with any woman, as he would dance with a man who was a good dancer and upon whose arm was tied a handkerchief to conventionalize him into a woman.
Chapter VI 2010
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Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them.
Archive 2006-02-01 Teena in Toronto 2006
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Then, too, it was inevitable that the typist or printer would conventionalize Joyce's mannered punctuation and spelling.
The Big Word in 'Ulysses' Ellmann, Richard 1984
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Is it not true that we habitually refuse to take seriously His teaching about man; that we water down His paradoxes and conventionalize His sayings; that we blunt the sharpness of His precepts, and shirk the tremendous sternness of His demands?
Religious Reality 1922
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They're just going to disorganize me, conventionalize me completely.
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They're just going to disorganize me, conventionalize me completely.
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Yet lest you find in this general combination of circumstances some sinister threat of audacity, let me conventionalize the story at once by opening it at that most conventional of all conventional
Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs Eleanor Hallowell Abbott 1915
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"I thought it was only women who were privileged to change their mind," she began brightly; but Arkwright ignored her attempt to conventionalize the situation.
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She was sick with love of him, and he danced with her as he would dance with any woman, as he would dance with a man who was a good dancer and upon whose arm was tied a handkerchief to conventionalize him into a woman.
Chapter VI 1910
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I'll just make studies now, and this winter I'll conventionalize them and work them into patterns.
The Harvester 1911
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