[f. prec. + -ISM.]
1. Adherence to or regard for what is conventional (in conduct, thought, or art); tendency to obey conventional usages or regulations.
1832. New Monthly Mag., XXXIV. 414. There is also another characteristic of these novels—their conventionalism is never offensive.
1837. Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer. (1839), III. 178. The incubus of conventionalism.
1882. Seeley, Nat. Relig., 129. The opposite of conventionalism is freshness of feeling, enthusiasm.
2. (with a and pl.) Anything characterized by adherence to mere convention; a conventional principle, idea, usage, or practice.
1846. in Worcester.
1849. Blackw. Mag., LXIV. 569. His style … is … defaced by conventionalisms the Academy would hardly sanction.
1853. A. J. Morris, Business, i. 12. A man … had better defraud his creditors, than … violate a single conventionalism of respectable society.
