"conversation piece" meaning in All languages combined

See conversation piece on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: conversation pieces [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} conversation piece (plural conversation pieces)
  1. An unusual item, such as a painting, or a tabletop knick-knack which encourages comment from visitors, and so helps to break the ice. Translations (Translations): pieza conversacional [feminine] (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-conversation_piece-en-noun-GKS2aRoQ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Spanish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 69 31 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 69 31 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 71 29 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 72 28 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 76 24 Disambiguation of 'Translations': 65 35
  2. (painting) A painting of a group of people engaged in conversation or some other activity, popular in 18th century. Categories (topical): Painting
    Sense id: en-conversation_piece-en-noun-ItF4DKKC

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "conversation pieces",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "conversation piece (plural conversation pieces)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "69 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "69 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "71 29",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "72 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "76 24",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1973, Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Random House, published 2010, →ISBN, page 261:",
          "text": "And Dwayne again carried on a wry talk with the Creator of the Universe, using a robot as an unfeeling conversation piece. A lot of people in Midland City put useless objects from Hawaii or Mexico or someplace like that on their coffee tables or their livingroom end tables or on what-not shelves—and such an object was called a conversation piece.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Greil Marcus, “Escape from New York”, in The Dustbin of History, Picador, →ISBN, page 188:",
          "text": "In 1965, when I moved into my first college apartment, one of my roommates tacked a poster of Guernica up in our kitchen. It was an odd thing to eat under, people said, all those mute screams and twisted shapes; we'd turned a cliché, the requisite famous art in a student apartment, into a conversation piece, but we got used to it, and soon the carnage was just decoration.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unusual item, such as a painting, or a tabletop knick-knack which encourages comment from visitors, and so helps to break the ice."
      ],
      "id": "en-conversation_piece-en-noun-GKS2aRoQ",
      "links": [
        [
          "painting",
          "painting"
        ],
        [
          "tabletop",
          "tabletop"
        ],
        [
          "knick-knack",
          "knick-knack"
        ],
        [
          "encourage",
          "encourage"
        ],
        [
          "visitor",
          "visitor"
        ],
        [
          "break the ice",
          "break the ice"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "65 35",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "pieza conversacional"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Painting",
          "orig": "en:Painting",
          "parents": [
            "Art",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1971, William Gaunt, The Great Century of British Painting: Hogarth to Turner:",
          "text": "Hogarth's enlargement of painting's scope was based on the conversation piece, which was to prove one of the most flexible and adaptable of genres. The idea of an informal group was not in itself new, nor the invention of Hogarth alone.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001, Jules David Prown, Art as Evidence: Writings on Art and Material Culture, Yale University Press, →ISBN:",
          "text": "The painting is a conversation piece without conversation and rightly regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A painting of a group of people engaged in conversation or some other activity, popular in 18th century."
      ],
      "id": "en-conversation_piece-en-noun-ItF4DKKC",
      "links": [
        [
          "painting",
          "painting#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "group",
          "group"
        ],
        [
          "engage",
          "engage"
        ],
        [
          "activity",
          "activity"
        ],
        [
          "century",
          "century"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "painting",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(painting) A painting of a group of people engaged in conversation or some other activity, popular in 18th century."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Arthur Devis"
  ],
  "word": "conversation piece"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Spanish translations",
    "Translation table header lacks gloss"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "conversation pieces",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "conversation piece (plural conversation pieces)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1973, Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Random House, published 2010, →ISBN, page 261:",
          "text": "And Dwayne again carried on a wry talk with the Creator of the Universe, using a robot as an unfeeling conversation piece. A lot of people in Midland City put useless objects from Hawaii or Mexico or someplace like that on their coffee tables or their livingroom end tables or on what-not shelves—and such an object was called a conversation piece.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Greil Marcus, “Escape from New York”, in The Dustbin of History, Picador, →ISBN, page 188:",
          "text": "In 1965, when I moved into my first college apartment, one of my roommates tacked a poster of Guernica up in our kitchen. It was an odd thing to eat under, people said, all those mute screams and twisted shapes; we'd turned a cliché, the requisite famous art in a student apartment, into a conversation piece, but we got used to it, and soon the carnage was just decoration.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unusual item, such as a painting, or a tabletop knick-knack which encourages comment from visitors, and so helps to break the ice."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "painting",
          "painting"
        ],
        [
          "tabletop",
          "tabletop"
        ],
        [
          "knick-knack",
          "knick-knack"
        ],
        [
          "encourage",
          "encourage"
        ],
        [
          "visitor",
          "visitor"
        ],
        [
          "break the ice",
          "break the ice"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Painting"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1971, William Gaunt, The Great Century of British Painting: Hogarth to Turner:",
          "text": "Hogarth's enlargement of painting's scope was based on the conversation piece, which was to prove one of the most flexible and adaptable of genres. The idea of an informal group was not in itself new, nor the invention of Hogarth alone.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001, Jules David Prown, Art as Evidence: Writings on Art and Material Culture, Yale University Press, →ISBN:",
          "text": "The painting is a conversation piece without conversation and rightly regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A painting of a group of people engaged in conversation or some other activity, popular in 18th century."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "painting",
          "painting#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "group",
          "group"
        ],
        [
          "engage",
          "engage"
        ],
        [
          "activity",
          "activity"
        ],
        [
          "century",
          "century"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "painting",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(painting) A painting of a group of people engaged in conversation or some other activity, popular in 18th century."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "pieza conversacional"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Arthur Devis"
  ],
  "word": "conversation piece"
}

Download raw JSONL data for conversation piece meaning in All languages combined (3.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.