conjunction - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Old French conjonction, from Latin coniūnctiō (“joining”), from coniungere (“to join”).

Examples (grammar)
Bread, butter and cheese.

conjunction (countable and uncountable, plural conjunctions)

  1. The act of joining, or condition of being joined.
    Synonyms: connection, union
    • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVIII, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I:
      […] Dr. Minchin in return was quite sure that man was not a mere machine or a fortuitous conjunction of atoms; […]
    • 1896, Robert Louis Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books‎[1]:
      About them all there is that sort of stiff quaint unreality, that conjunction of the grotesque, and even of a certain bourgeois snugness, with passionate contortion and horror, that is so characteristic of Gothic art.
  2. (grammar) A word used to join other words, phrases, or clauses together into sentences. (The specific conjunction used shows how the two joined parts are related semantically.)
    Hyponyms: coordinating conjunction, subordinating conjunction
    • 1881, Alfred Ayres [pseudonym; Thomas Embly Osmun], The Verbalist‎[2]:
      A comma is placed between short members of compound sentences, connected by and, but, for, nor, or, because, whereas, that expressing purpose (so that, in order that), and other conjunctions.
  3. Cooccurrence; coincidence.
    • 1843, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic‎[3], volume 1:
      […] the coexistence of one such phenomenon with another; or the succession of one such phenomenon to another: their conjunction, in short, so that where the one is found, we may calculate on finding both.
  4. (astronomy) The alignment of two bodies in the solar system such that they have the same longitude when seen from Earth.
    Antonym: opposition
    Hyponyms: grand conjunction, great conjunction, inferior conjunction, superior conjunction, topocentric conjunction
    • 2011, Starf*cker […] , Ev Cochrane, →ISBN, page 140:
      The spectacular conjunction of Venus and Mars gave rise to a myriad of mythical interpretations.
  5. (astrology) An aspect in which planets are in close proximity to one another.
  6. (logic) The proposition resulting from the combination of two or more propositions using the ∧ ( ∧ {\displaystyle \land } {\displaystyle \land }) operator.
    Meronyms: conjunct, logical connective
    Coordinate term: disjunction
    • 2007 September 19, Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Conjunction Fallacy”, in LessWrong‎[4], archived from the original on 3 February 2026:
      However, sequence 1 dominates sequence 2, because sequence 1 is strictly included in 2. 2 is 1 preceded by a G; that is, 2 is the conjunction of an initial G with 1.
  7. A place where multiple things meet.
    Coordinate terms: junction, juncture, confluence
    • 2001, David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 47:
      Today there is a mountain called Ararat near the conjunction of the Turkish, Armenian, and Iranian borders.
  8. (obsolete) Sexual intercourse.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:copulation

act of joining or being joined — see also union

grammar: word used to join words or phrases