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con·junc·tion (kən-jŭngkshən)
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n.
1.
a. The act of joining.
b. The state of being joined.
2. A joint or simultaneous occurrence; concurrence: the conjunction of historical and economic forces that created a depression.
3. One resulting from or embodying a union; a combination: "He is, in fact, a remarkable conjunction of talents" (Jerry Adler).
4. Abbr. conj. Grammar
a. The part of speech that serves to connect words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.
b. Any of the words belonging to this part of speech, such as and, but, as, and because.
5. Astronomy The position of two celestial objects when they have the same celestial longitude. As viewed from Earth, two objects in conjunction will appear to be close to each other in the sky.
6. Logic
a. A compound proposition that has components joined by the word and or its symbol and is true only if both or all the components are true.
b. The relationship between the components of a conjunction.

[Middle English conjunccioun, from Old French conjunction, conjuncion, from Latin coniūnctiō, coniūnctiōn-, a joining, conjunction (in grammatical sense, translation of Greek sundesmos, binding together, conjunction), from coniūnctus, past participle of coniungere, to join; see CONJOIN.]

con·junction·al adj.
con·junction·al·ly adv.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.