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American Dictionary of the English Language

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Converse


CONVERSE, verb intransitive [Latin , to be turned. Literally, to be turned to or with; to be turned about.]

1. To keep company; to associate; to cohabit; to hold intercourse and be intimately acquainted; followed by with.

For him who lonely loves to seek the distant hills, and their converse with nature.

2. To have sexual commerce.

3. To talk familiarly; to have free intercourse in mutual communication of thoughts and opinions; to convey thoughts reciprocally; followed by with before the person addressed, and on before the subject. converse as friend with friend. We have often conversed with each other on the merit of Miltons poetry. [This is now the most general use of the word.]

CONVERSE, noun

1. Conversation; familiar discourse or talk; free interchange of thoughts or opinions.

Formed by thy converse happily to steer from grave to gay, from lively to severe.

2. Acquaintance by frequent or customary intercourse; cohabitation; familiarity. In this sense, the word may include discourse, or not; as, to hold converse with persons of different sects; or to hold converse with terrestrial things.

3. In mathematics, an opposite proposition; thus, after drawing a conclusion from something supposed, we invert the order, making the conclusion the supposition or premises, and draw from it what was first supposed. Thus, if two sides of a triangle are equal, the angles opposite the sides are equal: and the converse is true; if these angles are equal, the two sides are equal.