Conversion

How to spell conversion

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce conversion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conversion mean?

1. nounThe act or process of changing something from one form, use, system, or state into another.
2. nounA change of religious faith or strongly held belief.

Conversion in a sentence

• The loft conversion added two bedrooms to the house.

• His conversion to a new faith surprised his entire family.

• The conversion of pounds to dollars cost a small fee at the bank.

• The memoir describes her conversion in vivid personal detail.

Where does conversion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin conversio, meaning 'a turning around' or 'a change in direction', which was built from the verb convertere, itself a combination of con- (a strengthening prefix here suggesting 'wholly' or 'together') and vertere, meaning 'to turn'. English borrowed it through Old French in the 1300s, and its earliest uses were religious, describing the turning of a soul toward a new faith. From that spiritual sense the meaning broadened to cover any kind of transformation, whether of one substance into another, one currency into another, or a building from one purpose to another. The same vertere root turns up in a whole family of relatives such as 'reverse', 'divert', 'version' and 'universe', so the central idea of turning is always present. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle, where the -sion ending and the buried 'er' can both be written by sound rather than by rule.

How the word is built

• con- (together, with)
• vers (turn, from Latin vertere)
• -ion (noun of action)