Adjective
Able and inclined to engage in conversation.
Usage- of people
- Examples
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It is proper for a Gentleman […] to be Civil, and Conversible in Discourse, to know Men and Manners.
More examples (3)
The elegant Part of mankind […] may be divided into the learned and conversible. […] The conversible World join to a sociable Disposition, and a Taste for Pleasure, an Inclination for the easier and more gentle Exercises of the Understanding,
1792, anonymous, “To Warren Hastings, Esq.,” cited in a letter written by William Cowper to Harriett Hesketh dated 5 May, 1792, in The Life, and Posthumous Writings, of William Cowper, Esqr., Chichester, 2nd ed., 1803, p. 40, I knew thee young, and of a mind While young, humane, conversable, and kind,
When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, a hearty conversible Frenchman (for all those who wait on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little room […]
He had a bottle of whisky in one hand, to make himself conversible.
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I had […] days when I ached for a conversable girl. The island women were […] dour and sallow-faced, and about as seducible as a Free Church congregation.
Able to be conversed with.
Usage- Obsolete
- of people
- Examples
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[…] it is not the invisible Devil that I am enquiring after, but an appearing conversible Daemon or Evil Spirit […] assuming human Shape, or at least Voice,
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[…] a full-grown horse, or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversible animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old.
Pertaining to, suited for or exhibiting conversation.
Usage- Obsolete
- of things
- Synonyms
- Examples
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More examples (3)
1619, John Donne, Sermon 71 in LXXX Sermons, London: Richard Royston, 1640, p. 720, […] it were not hard to assigne many examples of men that have stolne a great measure of learning, and yet lived open and conversable lives, and never beene observed […] to have spent many houres in study
1691, John Hartcliffe, A Treatise of Moral and Intellectual Virtues, London: C. Harper, p. 156, Of the Three Conversable VIRTUES […] The Virtues which adorn and recommend a Man in Conversation […]
1780, Thomas Paine, The American Crisis No. 9, in The American Crisis, and a Letter to Sir Guy Carleton, London: Daniel Isaac Eaton, circa 1796, pp. 211-212, […] while you, remote from the scene of suffering, had nothing to lose, and as little to dread, the information reached you like a tale of antiquity, in which the distance of time defaces the conception, and changes the severest sorrows into conversable amusement.
The evening was quiet and conversible, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella,