conventional wisdom
conventional wisdom noun: a belief or set of beliefs that is widely accepted, especially one which may be questionable on close examination.
Noun
conventional wisdom (usually uncountable, plural conventional wisdoms)
- A belief or set of beliefs that is widely accepted, especially one which may be questionable on close examination.
- It will be convenient to have a name for the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability, and it should be a term that emphasizes this predictability. I shall refer to these ideas henceforth as the conventional wisdom.1958, John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society
- So many Americans accept “zero population growth” as a new canon of conventional wisdom that it comes as a surprise to hear the notion disputed.1971 May 17, “Week’s Watch”, in Time
- Synonyms:
- received wisdom
Synonyms of conventional wisdom
Forms of conventional wisdom
| plural | conventional wisdoms |
|---|
Questions about conventional wisdom
- What does conventional wisdom mean?
- Conventional wisdom means a belief or set of beliefs that is widely accepted, especially one which may be questionable on close examination.
- What part of speech is conventional wisdom?
- Conventional wisdom is a noun.
- What is the plural of conventional wisdom?
- The plural of conventional wisdom is conventional wisdoms.
Words near conventional wisdom in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: conventional wisdom (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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