Other forms: conventions
A convention is an accepted way of doing things that people follow without being made to. Social convention, by convention, break with convention.
It is weaker than a rule and stronger than a habit: conventions hold because everybody expects them. The word also means a large meeting of a group or profession — a party convention, a comic convention, shortened to con — and a formal agreement between states: the Geneva Convention. Note conventional, which means both usual and, faintly critically, unadventurous, and unconventional, which is generally a compliment.
1nounconventionAn accepted way of doing things.
“By convention the chair speaks last.”
2nounlargeA large meeting of a group or profession.
“The convention takes over the whole city for four days.”
3nounagreementA formal agreement between states.
“The convention has been signed by a hundred and ninety countries.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
convention is an agreement or accepted practice.
Latin conventio means a coming together, from convenire — con-, together, plus venire, to come. All three senses are people assembling: at a meeting, on an agreement, or on an unspoken way of behaving.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷem-
Latin
conventiō — meeting, assembling; agreement, convention
Middle French
convention
English, today
convention
Built from
Recorded since about 1440, borrowed from Middle French convention, from Latin conventiō (“meeting, assembling; agreement, convention”), from conveniō (“come, gather or meet together, assemble”), from con- (“with, together”) + veniō (“come”). Equivalent to convene + tion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA