conversation
(noun) the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc.
Source: WordNet® 3.1
conversation (countable and uncountable, plural conversations)
Expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking. [from 16th c.]
Synonyms: banter, chat, chinwag, dialogue, discussion, interlocution, powwow, table talk
(fencing) The back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout.
(computing, networking) The protocol-based interaction between systems processing a transaction. [from 20th c.]
(obsolete) Interaction; commerce or intercourse with other people; dealing with others. [14th-18th c.]
(archaic) Behaviour, the way one conducts oneself; a person's way of life. [from 14th c.]
(obsolete) Sexual intercourse. [16th-19th c.]
Synonym: Thesaurus:copulation
(obsolete) Engagement with a specific subject, idea, field of study etc. [16th–18th c.]
Synonyms: understanding, familiarity
• To make conversation means to start a conversation with someone with no other aim than to talk and break the silence.
• To have a conversation, and to hold a conversation, both mean to converse.
• See Collocations of do, have, make, and take
conversation (third-person singular simple present conversations, present participle conversationing, simple past and past participle conversationed)
(nonstandard, ambitransitive) To engage in conversation (with).
• conservation, nanovortices
Source: Wiktionary
Con`ver*sa"tion, n. Etym: [OE. conversacio (in senses 1 & 2), OF. conversacion, F. conversation, fr. L. conversatio frequent abode in a place, intercourse, LL. also, manner of life.]
1. General course of conduct; behavior. [Archaic] Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel. Philip. i. 27.
2. Familiar intercourse; intimate fellowship or association; close acquaintance. "Conversation with the best company." Dryden. I set down, out of long experience in business and much conversation in books, what I thought pertinent to this business. Bacon.
3. Commerce; intercourse; traffic. [Obs.] All traffic and mutual conversation. Hakluyt.
4. Colloqual discourse; oral interchange of sentiments and observations; informal dialogue. The influence exercised by his [Johnson's] conversation was altogether without a parallel. Macaulay.
5. Sexual intercourse; as, criminal conversation.
Syn.
– Intercourse; communion; commerce; familiarity; discourse; dialogue; colloque; talk; chat.
– Conversation, Talk. There is a looser sense of these words, in which they are synonymous; there is a stricter sense, in which they differ. Talk is usually broken, familiar, and versatile. Conversation is more continuous and sustained, and turns ordinarily upon topics or higher interest. Children talk to their parents or to their companions; men converse together in mixed assemblies. Dr. Johnson once remarked, of an evening spent in society, that there had been a great deal of talk, but no conversation.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
22 September 2024
(noun) a beginning from which an enterprise is launched; “he uses other people’s ideas as a springboard for his own”; “reality provides the jumping-off point for his illusions”; “the point of departure of international comparison cannot be an institution but must be the function it carries out”
The world’s most expensive coffee costs more than US$700 per kilogram. Asian palm civet – a cat-like creature in Indonesia, eats fruits, including select coffee cherries. It excretes partially digested seeds that produce a smooth, less acidic brew of coffee called kopi luwak.
