a. (and sb.) [ad. L. conventiōnāl-is pertaining to a convention or agreement, f. conventiōn- CONVENTION. Cf. F. conventionnel (16th c. in Littré).]
1. Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a convention or assembly.
1812. Ann. Reg., 1810, Pref. 3. The national, conventional, and legislative assemblies of France.
1850. H. S. Foote, in H. von Holst, J. C. Calhoun (1884), 324. Intimating … that this Conventional movement of ours was stimulated by South Carolina.
2. 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).
1583. Stocker, Civ. Warres Lowe C., II. 5 a. Rightes, Customes, Priuiledges … aswell Legale, Conuentionale, Customary, as Locale.
1592. West, 1st Pt. Symbol., § 19 C. A pledge voluntarie or conuentionall, is a pledge diliuered by the couenant of both parties.
a. 1676. Hale, Anal. Law (1739), 49. Conventional Services; as, Homage, Knights Service, Grand or petit Serjeanty.
1847. Addison, Law of Contracts, II. iii. § 1 (1883), 593. A conventional hypothecation is that which is founded purely upon contract.
1848. Wharton, 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.
1861. W. Bell, Dict. Law Scot., Conventional Obligations, are obligations resulting from the special agreement of parties … in contradistinction to natural or legal obligations.
b. = CONVENTIONARY.
1804. Marshall, 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.
1883. Pres. Arthur, in Pall Mall G., 4 Dec., 8/1. In the absence of conventional engagements, owing to the termination of the treaty of 1848.
1885. Manch. Exam., 21 March, 5/1. Delegates of the Powers to meet in Paris to draw up a conventional Act … guaranteeing the freedom of the Suez Canal.
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.
1761. Gibbon, Misc. Wks. (1814), III. 211. In matters merely conventional, examples are more powerful than principles.
1783. Blair, Lect., vi. (Seager). The connexion between words and ideas may in general be considered as arbitrary and conventional.
1818. Cruise, 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.
1871. 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. Characterized by convention; in accordance with accepted artificial standards of conduct or taste; not natural, original, or spontaneous.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. vi. A tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire.
1844. Stanley, Arnold, I. ii. 52. Breaking through the conventional phraseology with which English preaching had been so long encumbered.
1875. Jowett, 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.
1851. Ruskin, 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.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 34. Some conventional costume, never actual but always graceful and noble.
1879. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit., I. 25. In their works you find the finest specimens of conventional or imaginary foliage.
1888. The 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.
B. as sb.
1. The c.: That which is conventional.
1800. W. 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!
1837. Emerson, 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.
1876. Morley, Robespierre, Crit. Misc. Ser. II. (1877), 128. The Conventionals … were unconscious apparently that the great crisis of the drama was still to come.
