conversational

UK/ˌkɒnvə(ɹ)ˈseɪʃənəl/US/ˌkɒnvə(ɹ)ˈseɪʃənəl/

adjectiveB12 meaningsVery rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — conversation sits at #747leans written

Conversational means relaxed and informal, the way people actually talk. Short sentences, contractions, nothing stiff about it.

It describes a tone above all: a conversational style of writing, a conversational opening line, a speaker with a conversational manner. It also describes a level of a language — conversational French is enough to hold a chat and not enough to read a contract, and job adverts use that phrase constantly. A third use is plainer still: conversational skills, meaning the knack of keeping a conversation going. Its opposite is formal for the tone, and fluent for the level.

Definitions of conversational

1adjectiveconversationalInformal and relaxed, like ordinary speech.B1
“He writes in a warm, conversational style.”
2adjectivegoodGood enough for holding a conversation.B1
“She has conversational Spanish and not much more.”

Where it comes from

Latin
conversātiōnem
Old French
conversacion
Middle English
conversacioun
English
conversation
English, today
conversational

Built from

conversātiō · Latin — conversation
conversor · Latin — abide, keep company with

From conversation + -al. conversation comes from Middle English conversacioun, from Old French conversacion and its etymon, Latin conversātiōnem, accusative singular of conversātiō (“conversation”), from conversor (“abide, keep company with”). Displaced native Old English wordlaþu. a doublet of conversazione. Morphologically converse + ation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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