What does "conventionalism" mean?

Adherence to social conventions; conventional behavior.

Conventionalism

Common synonyms include: art, civility, conformity, convention, conventionality, conventionality.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Adherence to social conventions; conventional behavior. uncountable, usually
2
orthodoxy as a consequence of being conventional wordnet
3
A conventional act or constraint. countable, obsolete, usually
"Having said this, you will not, I trust, suspect me of disliking you for throwing off conventionalisms and speaking to me as a man to a man."
4
The doctrine that logical or mathematical principles are simply the expression of conventions. uncountable, usually
"Skepticism arrives at conventionalism by way of the claims that the conditions on evidential support cannot be satisfied […] but that we must have beliefs in order to carry on."

"Having said this, you will not, I trust, suspect me of disliking you for throwing off conventionalisms and speaking to me as a man to a man."

From conventional + -ism.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.