con

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English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English connen, from Old English cunnan (to know, know how), from Proto-West Germanic *kunnan, from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (whence know). Doublet of can.

Verb

con (third-person singular simple present cons, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)

  1. (rare) To study or examine carefully, especially in order to gain knowledge of; to learn, or learn by heart.
    • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 125, column 1:
      For Caſſius is a-weary of the World: / Hated by one he loues, brau'd by his Brother, / Check'd like a bondman, all his faults obſeru'd, / Set in a Note-booke, learn'd, and con'd by roate / To caſt into my Teeth.
    • 1815 [1802], William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence:
      At length, himself unsettling, he the pond / Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look / Upon the muddy water, which he conned, / As if he had been reading in a book
    • 1795, Edmund Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord on the Attacks Made upon him and his Pension, in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, Early in the Present Session of Parliament:
      I did not come into parliament to con my lesson. I had earned my pension before I set my foot in St. Stephen's chapel.
    • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 21, in Vanity Fair , London: Bradbury and Evans , published 1848, →OCLC:
      During these delectable entertainments, Miss Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the peerage, and talked about the nobility.
    • 1876 July, Henry James, Jr., “The American”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXXVIII, number CCXXV, Boston, Mass.: H[enry] O[scar] Houghton and Company; New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, chapter IV, page 17, column 2:
      He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to frequent another café, where more newspapers were taken and his post-prandial demi-tasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange coincidences.
    • 1963, D'Arcy Niland, Dadda jumped over two elephants: short stories:
      The hawk rested on a crag of the gorge and conned the terrain with a fierce and frowning eye.
  2. (rare, obsolete) To know; understand; acknowledge.
Related terms

Etymology 2

Abbreviation of Latin contra (against).

Noun

con (plural cons)

  1. A disadvantage of something, especially when contrasted with its advantages (pros).
    pros and cons
Synonyms
Antonyms
Related terms
Translations

Etymology 3

Clipping of convict.

Noun

con (plural cons)

  1. (slang) A convicted criminal, a convict.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 4

From con trick, shortened from confidence trick.

Noun

con (plural cons)

  1. (informal) A fraud; something carried out with the intention of deceiving, usually for personal, often illegal, gain.
    Synonyms: scam; see also Thesaurus:deception
    • 2021 February 23, Rafael Behr, “Brexit is a machine to generate perpetual grievance. It's doing its job perfectly”, in The Guardian:
      Leavers will be attracted to that story because it spares them the discomfort of admitting that they voted for a con, and then made a prime minister of the con artist.
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

con (third-person singular simple present cons, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)

  1. (transitive, informal) To trick or defraud, usually for personal gain.
    Synonyms: (British, Australian) be sold a pup; see also Thesaurus:deceive
    • 2017 July 17, Martin Lukacs, “Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals”, in The Guardian:
      Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals [title]
Translations

Related terms

Etymology 5

From earlier cond; see conn.

Verb

con (third-person singular simple present cons, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)

  1. Alternative form of conn (direct a ship)

Noun

con (uncountable)

  1. Alternative form of conn (navigational direction of a ship)
Derived terms

Etymology 6

Clipping of convention or conference.

Noun

con (plural cons)

  1. (informal) An organized gathering, such as a convention, conference, or congress.
    • 1995 September 4, Lindsay Crawford, “Re: Intersection”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom (Usenet), message-ID <9509042250393785@emerald.com>:
      I can't speak for Faye as ed of FHAPA, but it would be really swell of someone could send us a set of Intersection daily newszines, plus any con flyers or other fannish papers that were there to had for the picking up: fannish things, you know, not including media, gaming, filking or costuming, fine fun but not my cup of blog, thank you.
Derived terms

Etymology 7

Clipping of conversion.

Noun

con (plural cons)

  1. (informal) The conversion of part of a building.
    We're getting a loft con done next year.

Etymology 8

Clipping of consumption.

Noun

con (uncountable)

  1. (informal, obsolete) Consumption; pulmonary tuberculosis.

Etymology 9

Origin uncertain. Perhaps a clipping of Middle English acquerne, aquerne, ocquerne, okerne (squirrel), from Old English ācweorna, āqueorna, āquorna, ācurna (squirrel), from Proto-West Germanic *aikwernō, from Proto-Germanic *aikwernô (squirrel); or from its Old Norse cognate íkorni (squirrel), from the same ultimate source. Cognate with West Frisian iikhoarn (squirrel), Dutch eekhoorn (squirrel), German Eichhorn (squirrel), Icelandic íkorni (squirrel).

Alternative forms

Noun

con (plural cons)

  1. (zoology, dialectal or obsolete) Squirrel, particularly the red squirrel.
  2. (Northern England, obsolete) A squirrel's nest.

Etymology 10

Clipping of conservative; compare lib.

Noun

con (plural cons)

  1. (abbreviation) A political conservative.
    own the cons
Derived terms

See also

English terms containing "con" etymologically unrelated to the above entries

Anagrams

Aragonese

Etymology

From Latin cum (with).

Preposition

con

  1. with

Asturian

Etymology

From Latin cum (with).

Preposition

con

  1. with

Derived terms

Catalan

Catalan Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia ca

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cōnus.

Pronunciation

Noun

con m (plural cons)

  1. cone

Related terms

Chinese

Etymology 1

Clipping of English contact lens.

Pronunciation


Noun

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) contact lens (Classifier: c;  c;  c)
Synonyms
Derived terms

Etymology 2

Clipping of happy corner, from English happy corner.

Alternative forms

Pronunciation


Noun

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, chiefly school slang) happy corner

Verb

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, chiefly school slang) to happy corner
    • 2004, “大學迎新出軌玩Con撞下體”, in 大學線:
      調查顯示,有七成男生是在不情願的情況下被con的。另外,近四成受訪者表示即使「被con者」反抗,也不會停止con人。
      Survey has shown that 70% of males are happy cornered involuntarily. Also, nearly 40% of correspondents states that they would not happy cornering people, even when the one who is happy cornered is resisting.

Etymology 3

Clipping of English concert.

Pronunciation


Noun

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) concert (Classifier: c)
Synonyms

Etymology 4

Clipping of English contest.

Pronunciation


Noun

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, chiefly in compounds) contest
Derived terms

Etymology 5

Clipping of English consultation or English consult.

Pronunciation


Verb

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, university slang) to consult or to question a student society candidate before the election
Derived terms

Etymology 6

Clipping of English contractor.

Pronunciation

Noun

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) contractor
Derived terms

Etymology 7

Clipping of English conference.

Pronunciation


Noun

con

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, only in compounds) conference
Derived terms

Dalmatian

Etymology 1

From Latin cum.

Preposition

con

  1. with

Etymology 2

From Latin cunnus.

Noun

con m

  1. (vulgar) vulva, cunt

Fala

Alternative forms

  • cun (Lagarteiru, less common in Valverdeñu)

Etymology

From Old Galician-Portuguese con, from Latin cum, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm.

Pronunciation

Preposition

con

  1. (Mañegu, Valverdeñu) with
    Antonym: sin
    • 2000, Domingo Frades Gaspar, Vamus a falal: Notas pâ coñocel y platical en nosa fala, Editora regional da Extremadura, Chapter 2: Númerus:
      Cumu to é custión de proporciós, sin que sirva de argumentu por nun fel falta, poemus vel que en a misma Europa hai Estaus Soberarius con menus territoriu que os tres lugaris nossus, cumu:
      As everything is a matter of proportions, without its presence being an argument, we can see that even in Europe there are Sovereign States with less territory than our three places, such as:

References

  • Valeš, Miroslav (2021) Diccionariu de A Fala: lagarteiru, mañegu, valverdeñu (web), 2nd edition, Minde, Portugal: CIDLeS, published 2022, →ISBN

French

Etymology

Inherited from Latin cunnus, probably ultimately of Proto-Indo-European origin.

Pronunciation

Noun

con m (plural cons, feminine conne)

  1. (vulgar) cunt, pussy (the female genitalia)
  2. (vulgar) arsehole, asshole, fucktard, cunt, retard (stupid person)
    • 2021, Angèle, Plus de sens:
      Comme un con qui dit ce qu’il pense, [] rien n’a plus de sens.
      Like an asshole who says what he thinks, nothing makes sense anymore.

Adjective

con (feminine conne, masculine plural cons, feminine plural connes)

  1. (slang, vulgar) stupid

Derived terms

Further reading

Anagrams

Galician

Alternative forms

  • com (reintegrationist)

Etymology 1

From Old Galician-Portuguese con, from Latin cum (with).

Pronunciation

Preposition

con

  1. with
    Antonym: sen
Derived terms

Conjunction

con

  1. and

Etymology 2

Cons, Couso, Ribeira, Galicia
Boulder known as Con da Edra (Ivy's boulder)

Attested in local Medieval Latin documents as cauno, with a derived cauneto, from Proto-Celtic *akaunon (stone), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éḱmō. Unlikely from Latin cōnus, which should have originated a word with a closed stressed vowel. Doublet of gouño.

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Noun

con m (plural cons)

  1. boulder, specially those found semi-submerged at the seashore
    Synonyms: laxe, petón
Derived terms
Related terms

References

  • con” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006–2022.
  • caun” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006–2018.
  • con” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
  • con” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
  • con” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.
  1. ^ "cauneto" in Galleciae Monumenta Historica.
  2. ^ Joan Coromines; José A. Pascual (1983–1991), “con II”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), Madrid: Gredos
  3. ^ Cf. Xavier Delamarre (2003) Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, →ISBN, pages 30-31.
  4. ^ Joseph M. Piel (1953) Miscelânea de etimologia portuguesa a galega: primeira série, Coímbra: Universidade, page 99

Irish

Pronunciation

Noun

con m sg

  1. genitive singular of

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
con chon gcon
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Italian

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Latin cum (with), from Proto-Italic *kom, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).

Preposition

con

  1. with, together
    Antonym: senza
  2. (rowing) coxed
Usage notes
  • When followed by the definite article, con may be combined with the article to produce the following combined forms (marking these combined forms in writing is old-fashioned, and very rarely used apart from col and coi; however, it has always been very common in speech, and it still is):
con + article Combined form
con + il col
con + lo collo
con + l' coll'
con + i coi
con + gli cogli
con + la colla
con + le colle

Etymology 2

Alternative form of com, apocopic form of come, found before consonants other than ⟨b⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨p⟩.

Adverb

con (apocopated)

  1. (obsolete) Alternative form of com, Apocopic form of come
    • c. 13161321, Dante Alighieri, “Canto XXXI”, in Paradiso [Heaven]‎, lines 58–60; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate]‎, 2nd revised edition, Florence: publ. Le Lettere, 1994:
      Uno intendëa, e altro mi rispuose:
      credea veder Beatrice e vidi un sene
      vestito con le genti glorïose.
      One listened, and another one answered me; I thought I saw Beatrice, and I saw an old man, dressed like the glorious people
Derived terms

References

  • con1 in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
  • con2 in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Ladin

Alternative forms

  • cun (Gherdëina, Badia)

Etymology

From Latin cum (with).

Preposition

con

  1. with
    Antonyms: zenza, zënza

Ligurian

Etymology

From Latin cum.

Pronunciation

Preposition

con

  1. with
con + article Combined form
con + o co-o
con + a co-a
con + i co-i
con + e co-e

Middle Irish

Pronunciation

Noun

con m

  1. genitive singular/dual/plural of

Mutation

Middle Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Nasalization
con chon con
pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Muong

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Proto-Vietic *kɔːn, from Proto-Mon-Khmer *kuun or *kuən. Cognates include Old Mon kon, Khmer កូន (koun), Bahnar kon, Vietnamese con.

Noun

con

  1. (Mường Bi) child

Classifier

con

  1. (Mường Bi) Indicates animals (including the human)

References

  • Hà Quang Phùng (2012-09-06), “Archived copy”, in Tìm hiểu về ngữ pháp tiếng Mường (Thim hiếu wuê ngử pháp thiểng Mường) [Understanding Muong grammar]‎ (FlashPaper, in Vietnamese, Muong), Thanh Sơn–Phú Thọ Province Continuing Education Center, archived from the original on 2016-09-19

Old French

Etymology 1

From Latin cunnus.

Noun

con oblique singularm (oblique plural cons, nominative singular cons, nominative plural con)

  1. (vulgar) cunt (human female genitalia)
Descendants
  • French: con
See also

Etymology 2

See conme.

Conjunction

con

  1. Alternative form of conme

Old Galician-Portuguese

Etymology

Inherited from Latin cum, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm.

Pronunciation

Preposition

con

  1. with

Descendants

  • Fala: con
  • Galician: con
  • Portuguese: com (see there for further descendants)

Old Irish

Pronunciation

Noun

con m

  1. genitive singular/dual/plural of

Conjunction

con

  1. Alternative form of co (so that)
    • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 12c38
      con festar cách
      so that everyone may know

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Nasalization
con chon con
pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Old Spanish

Etymology

From Latin cum.

Pronunciation

Preposition

con

  1. with
    • c. 1200, Cantar del Mio Cid:
      Çid, en el nuestro mal vos non ganades nada;
      mas ¡el Criador vos vala con todas sus vertudes sanctas!»
      Cid, from our ill you gain nothing;
      but may the Creator protect you with all his holy powers!

Descendants

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *kunom (compare Welsh cŵn, Cornish keun).

Noun

con m pl

  1. definite genitive plural of (dog)
    ann an linn cogadh nan conin the distant past (literally, “in the era of the war of the dogs”)

Spanish

Etymology

Inherited from Latin cum (with), from Proto-Italic *kom, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).

Pronunciation

Preposition

con

  1. with
    Antonym: sin
  2. on
    Yo cuento con ustedes.I count on you.

Derived terms

See also

Further reading

Vietnamese

Etymology

From Proto-Vietic *kɔːn, from Proto-Mon-Khmer *kuun ~ *kuən. Cognate with Muong còn, Thavung กอน, Mon ကွေန် (kon), Khmer កូន (koun), Bahnar kon, Khasi khun, Central Nicobarese kōan. For semantic relations, compare Chinese (child; small thing; son), Japanese (shi, ko, child; small thing; son; boy; girl). See also non (young, juvenile), which is from an infixed form of the root.

Attested in the Annan Jishi (安南即事, 13th century) as (MC kan).

Pronunciation

Noun

(classifier đứa) con (𡥵, )

  1. a child (daughter or son)
    con cáichildren
    con nuôian adopted child
    gà cona chick
    Con cóc con là con con cóc.
    A toadlet is an offspring of a toad.
    • 1983, Homer, translated by Phan Thị Miến, Ô-đi-xê [The Odyssey]:
      Tê-lê-mác, con ! Đừng làm rầy mẹ, mẹ còn muốn thử thách cha ở tại nhà này. Thế nào rồi mẹ con cũng sẽ nhận ra, chắc chắn như vậy. Hiện giờ cha còn bẩn thỉu, áo quần rách rưới, nên mẹ con khinh cha, chưa nói : “Đích thị là chàng rồi !”. […]
      Telemachus, my son! Don’t you bother your mother, she still wants to put me to trials at this home. She will recognize me eventually, there is no doubt about that. I still look like a rascal, in torn clothes, that is why your mother still doubts me, she is yet to say: “It was definitely you this whole time!”.
  2. (rare, chiefly in translations of ancient texts) a son
    Antonym: con gái
  3. (only in compounds, in fixed expressions) build; stature

Derived terms

Noun

con (𡥵, )

  1. (rare, only in compounds) a small thing
    con quaya spinning top
    con lắca pendulum

Derived terms

See also

Pronoun

con (𡥵, )

  1. I/me (used by children when talking to their parents)
  2. (chiefly Central Vietnam and Southern Vietnam) I/me (used when talking to someone significantly older than the speaker)
  3. you (used by parents when talking to their children)
  4. (chiefly Central Vietnam and Southern Vietnam) you (used when talking to some significantly younger than the speaker)
    con thật!
    It's you for real!

Usage notes

  • Sense (4) is chiefly used in Central and Southern Vietnam, perhaps extensively to North Central Vietnam. In Northern Vietnam, cháu is used instead. Some Northerners, however, do use con, especially when talking to Southern children on Southern TV shows.

Synonyms

Classifier

con

  1. Indicates animals (including humans).
  2. (disrespectful) Indicates female people.
    Antonym: thằng
    một thằng, hai conone guy, two girls
  3. Indicates knives, ships, boats, trains and eye pupils.
    con daoa knife
  4. Indicates roads, rivers, streams and waves.
    trên con đường đến hạnh phúcon the road/path to happiness
  5. (somewhat literary) Indicates written characters.
    con chữa character or letter
  6. (colloquial) Indicates wheeled vehicles.
    Anh mày có hẳn hai con xe Honda đấy nhớ!
    I have two Honda motorbikes!
  7. (colloquial) Indicates video games and movies.
    Ông chơi con game này chưa?
    Have you played this game?

Usage notes

  • Even though con người is used, it is generally thought of as a noun phrase on its own, and người does not require a classifier because it is itself a classifier (compare Japanese (nin)). Một con người "a person" does not sound dehumanizing, but even literary, while một người sounds casual enough.
  • The phrase con người is popularly employed as a philosophical trope or device to bring up discussions about what it means to be human as opposed to being an animal, even though it is not really semantically convincing given the fact that humans are, zoologically, animals, and there are non-animal things going with this classifier.

Derived terms

See also

Zazaki

Etymology

Related to Persian جان (jân).

Noun

con

  1. soul