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convent

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈkɒn.vɛnt//
  • United Kingdom//ˈkɒn.vənt//
  • United States//ˈkɑn.vɛnt//
  • //kənˈvɛnt//

A religious community whose members live under strict observation of religious rules and self-imposed vows.

noun

  1. 1

    A religious community whose members live under strict observation of religious rules and self-imposed vows.

    Near-synonym: abbey

    My God! It's enough to drive a girl into a convent! Do they have Jewish nuns?

  2. 2

    The buildings and pertaining surroundings in which such a community lives.

    One seldom finds in Italy a spot of ground more agreeable than ordinary that is not covered with a convent.

  3. 3

    The buildings and pertaining surroundings in which such a community lives. Synonym of nunnery, a female religious community and its residence.

  4. 4

    A Christian school.

  5. 5

    A gathering of people lasting several days for the purpose of discussing or working on topics previously selected.

  6. 6

    A coming together; a meeting.

    ...an usual ceremony at their [the witches'] convents or meetings...

Etymology

From Middle English convent, variant of covent, from Old French covent, from Latin conventus, perfect participle of the verb convenio (whence ultimately convene), see con- + venio. Doublet of coven.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo call before a judge or judicature; to summon; to convene.

    Tomorrow morning to the Council board He be convented.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo meet together; to concur.

    We convent nought else but woes

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo be convenient; to serve.

    When that is known and golden time convents.

Etymology

From Latin convenio (past participle conventus), whence also convene; so of the same ultimate origin as Etymology 1.

Forms

plural
convents
past tense
convented
past participle
convented
present participle
conventing
third person singular
convents
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).