1. The act of coming together; the state of being together; union; coalition.
The conventions or associations of several particles of matter into bodies of any certain denomination.
Boyle.
2. General agreement or concurrence; arbitrary custom; usage; conventionality.
There are thousands now
Such women, but convention beats them down.
Tennyson.
3. A meeting or an assembly of persons, esp. of delegates or representatives, to accomplish some
specific object, — civil, social, political, or ecclesiastical.
He set himself to the making of good laws in a grand convention of his nobles.
Sir R. Baker.
A convention of delegates from all the States, to meet in Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose
of reserving the federal system, and correcting its defects.
W. Irving.
4. (Eng. Hist) An extraordinary assembly of the parkiament or estates of the realm, held without the
king's writ, — as the assembly which restored Charles II. to the throne, and that which declared the
throne to be abdicated by James II.
Our gratitude is due . . . to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.
Macaulay.
5. An agreement or contract less formal than, or preliminary to, a treaty; an informal compact, as between
commanders of armies in respect to suspension of hostilities, or between states; also, a formal agreement
between governments or sovereign powers; as, a postal convention between two governments.
This convention, I think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; a truce without a
suspension of hostilities.
Ld. Chatham.
The convention with the State of Georgia has been ratified by their Legislature.
T. Jefferson.
Conventional
(Con*ven"tion*al) a. [L. conventionalis: cf. F. conventionnel.]
1. Formed by agreement or compact; stipulated.
Conventional services reserved by tenures upon grants, made out of the crown or knights' service.
Sir M.
Hale.
2. Growing out of, or depending on, custom or tacit agreement; sanctioned by general concurrence or
usage; formal. "Conventional decorum." Whewell.
The conventional language appropriated to monarchs.
Motley.
The ordinary salutations, and other points of social behavior, are conventional.
Latham.
3. (Fine Arts) (a) Based upon tradition, whether religious and historical or of artistic rules. (b) Abstracted; removed
from close representation of nature by the deliberate selection of what is to be represented and what is
to be rejected; as, a conventional flower; a conventional shell. Cf. Conventionalize, v. t.
Conventionalism
(Con*ven"tion*al*ism) n.
