Meaning of conversation in English

conversation

/ˌkɒn.vəˈseɪ.ʃən/ us

/ˌkɑːn.vɚˈseɪ.ʃən/

(a) talk between two or more people in which thoughts, feelings, and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information is exchanged:

have a conversation with She had a strange conversation with the man who moved in upstairs.

hold/carry on a conversation It's impossible to hold/carry on a conversation with all this noise going on!

strike up a conversation with I struck up (= started) an interesting conversation with your uncle.

Because of television, many people have lost the art of conversation (= talking to each other).

run out of conversation Whenever I'm in a social situation with my boss, we seem to run out of conversation (= things to say to each other) after two minutes!

More examplesFewer examples

She fell into a conversation with a man at the bar.
There are certain topics of conversation that are not suitable for polite society.
She completely monopolized the conversation at lunch.
Brother Michael and Brother John were deep in conversation.
I wish Dad would stop listening in on my phone conversations.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Informal talking & conversation

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Idiom

make conversation

(Definition of conversation from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

conversation | American Dictionary

conversation

noun [ C/U ]

/ˌkɑn·vərˈseɪ·ʃən/

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an informal, usually private, talk in which two or more people exchange thoughts, feelings, or ideas, or in which news or information is given or discussed:

[ C ] We had a brief conversation Friday.

[ U ] The topic of conversation was college plans.

If you make conversation, you cause someone to talk to you, esp. about unimportant matters.

conversational

adjective us

/ˌkɑn·vərˈseɪ·ʃə·nəl/

He rarely speaks in a normal conversational tone.

(Definition of conversation from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

conversation | Business English

conversation

noun [ C ]

/ˌkɒnvəˈseɪʃən/ us

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a discussion with someone about a particular subject:

have a conversation We believe the company has the resources it needs, but if more is needed, we'll have that conversation.

(Definition of conversation from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of conversation

conversation

To the extent that conversations are implicitly expected or planned to co-occur with dinners, coffee breaks, or other scheduled activities, they are also temporally constrained.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In comparison to ordinary conversations, less common words are employed in both informational and narrative texts.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Clarification requests play an important role in effective conversations, and children must learn the conversational rules for interpreting and responding to such requests.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Such regularities in conversations are the subject matter of sociolinguistics - the study of how social settings and roles influence language use.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

An initial warm-up conversation was followed by four narrative tasks in which the child was expected to produce at least one narrative.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The first one is unlikely to occur in everyday conversation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The food is typically served only after any business, such as praying, is complete, and only then is there much conversation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Without such specification, it remains unclear why some changes made in conversation lead to corrections, and others don't.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Hearing a piece of music evoked memories from a person's past, and spurred conversation with others about past experiences.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The literature reviews give manageable starting places for grounding such research projects in a variety of disciplinary conversations.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

However, with regard to the conversation it seems reasonable to assume that less dominance would have been observed had both participants received equal instruction.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Current lack of such data is easily explained through difficulties of recording private conversations.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The translation task was always conducted first and was separated by at least 40 min of conversation from the grammaticality judgment task.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In any conversation where information is conveyed, the interlocutors must have somewhat different models, at least before the end of the conversation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Only statements and conversations considered to be subversive or dangerous attracted the attention of those in authority and came to be recorded via judicial processes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of conversation

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with conversation

conversation

These are words often used in combination with conversation.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

brief conversation

We had a brief conversation.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

casual conversation

It can frequently be heard in newscasts as well as in casual conversation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

everyday conversation

Complaining and arguing in everyday conversation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all collocations with conversation

What is the pronunciation of conversation?

Translations of conversation

in Chinese (Traditional)

交談，談話，對話…

Meaning of conversation in English

Idiom

conversation | American Dictionary

conversational

conversation | Business English

Examples of conversation

Collocations with conversation

conversation

Translations of conversation

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