con
English
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /kɒn/
- (General American) enPR: kŏn, IPA(key): /kɑn/
- Rhymes: -ɒn
Audio (US) (file) - Homophone: conn; (General American) Khan
Etymology 1
From Middle English connen, from Old English cunnan (“to know, know how”), 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)
- (rare) To study or examine carefully, especially in order to gain knowledge of; to learn, or learn by heart.
- 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act IV, sc. 3:
- For Cassius is aweary of the world;
- Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
- Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed,
- Set in a notebook, learned, and conned by rote,
- To cast into my teeth.
- 1807, William Wordsworth, Poems, "Resolution and Independence" (composed 1802):
- 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.
- 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 21:
- During these delectable entertainments, Miss Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the peerage, and talked about the nobility.
- 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.
- 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act IV, sc. 3:
- (rare, archaic) To know, understand, acknowledge.
- 1579, Edmund Spenser, Shepheardes Calender, Iune:
- Of Muses Hobbinol, I conne no skill
- 1579, Edmund Spenser, Shepheardes Calender, Iune:
Noun
con (plural cons)
- A disadvantage of something, especially when contrasted with its advantages (pros).
- pros and cons
- (abbreviation) conservative
- own the cons
Synonyms
Antonyms
Related terms
Translations
Etymology 3
Clipping of convict.
Translations
Etymology 4
From con trick, shortened from confidence trick.
Noun
con (plural cons)
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:deception
Translations
|
Verb
con (third-person singular simple present cons, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)
Synonyms
- (to be conned): be sold a pup (idiomatic, British, Australian)
Translations
|
Related terms
- con man
- con trick
Verb
con (third-person singular simple present cons, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)
- Alternative form of conn (“direct a ship”)
Etymology 6
Clipping of convention or conference.
Noun
con (plural cons)
- (informal) An organized gathering such as a convention, conference or congress.
Etymology 7
Clipping of conversion.
Noun
con (plural cons)
- (informal) The conversion of part of a building.
- We're getting a loft con done next year.
Etymology 8
Clipping of consumption.
Asturian
Dalmatian
Fala
Etymology
From Old Portuguese con, from Latin cum, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm.
Preposition
con
- with
- 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:
-
French
Etymology
From Latin cunnus, probably ultimately of Proto-Indo-European origin.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kɔ̃/
audio (file)
Noun
Adjective
con (feminine singular conne, masculine plural cons, feminine plural connes)
- (slang, vulgar) stupid
Further reading
- “con” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Galician
Etymology 1
From Old Galician and Old Portuguese con, from Latin cum (“with”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ko̝ŋ/
Antonyms
Etymology 2
Attested in local Medieval Latin documents as cauno, with a derived cauneto,[1] perhaps from Proto-Celtic *akaunon (“stone”)[2] rather than from Latin cōnus, which should have originated a word with a closed stressed vowel.[3]
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈkɔŋ/
Noun
con m (plural cons)
Derived terms
- Con
- Coedo
References
- “con” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006-2012.
- “caun” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006-2016.
- “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.
- "cauneto" in Galleciae Monumenta Historica.
- Cf. Xavier Delamarre (2003) Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, →ISBN, pages 30-31.
- Joseph M. Piel (1953) Miscelânea de etimologia portuguesa a galega: primeira série, Coímbra: Universidade, page 99
Irish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [kɔnˠ]
Italian
Etymology
From Latin cum (“with”), from Proto-Italic *kom, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“next to, at, with, along”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kon/
Usage notes
- When followed by the definite article, con may be combined with the article to produce the following combined forms (old-fashioned, very rarely used apart from col and coi, which even then are uncommon):
Ladin
Alternative forms
- cun (Badia)
Ligurian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈkuŋ/
Muong
Alternative forms
- còn (tone sandhi)
Etymology
From Proto-Vietic *kɔːn, from Proto-Mon-Khmer *kuun or *kuən. Cognates include Old Mon kon, Khmer កូន (koun), Bahnar kon, Vietnamese con.
Classifier
con
- Indicates animals (including the human)
Old French
Noun
con m (oblique plural cons, nominative singular cons, nominative plural con)
- (vulgar) cunt (human female genitalia)
See also
Descendants
- French: con
Etymology 2
See conme.
Old Irish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kon/
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 Portuguese
Etymology
From Latin cum, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kõ/
Old Spanish
Preposition
con
- 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!
- Cid, from our ill you gain nothing;
-
Spanish
Etymology
From Latin cum (“with”), from Proto-Italic *kom, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“next to, at, with, along”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kon/, [kõn]
- Rhymes: -on
Antonyms
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. Compare Chinese 子 (“child; small thing”), Japanese 子 (shi, ko, “child; small thing”).
Pronunciation
- (Hà Nội) IPA(key): [kɔn˧˧]
- (Huế) IPA(key): [kɔŋ˧˧]
- (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA(key): [kɔŋ˧˧]
Noun
(classifier đứa) con (昆, 𡥵) (phonemic reduplicatives cỏn con)
- child (daughter or son)
- con cóc con là con con cóc
- A toadlet is an offspring of a toad
- 1983, Ô-đi-xê [The Oddyssey], translated by Phan Thị Miến:
- — 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!”. […]
Derived terms
- (reduplicated): cỏn con (“tiny”)
- (reduplicated): con con (“rather small”)
See also
Pronoun
- I (used when talking to your parents)
- (familiar or dialectal, chiefly Central Vietnam and Southern Vietnam) I (used when talking to someone (presumably) much older)
- you (used when talking to your child)
- (familiar or dialectal, chiefly Central Vietnam and Southern Vietnam) you (used when talking to someone (presumably) much younger)
- Là con thật!
- It's you for real!
Usage notes
- Sense (4) is chiefly used in central and southern Vietnam, perhaps extensively to northern-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
- (you (4)): cháu
Classifier
con
- Indicates animals (including humans).
- Indicates knives, ships, boats, trains and irises.
- Indicates roads, rivers, streams and waves.
- (colloquial) Indicates wheeled vehicles.
- Anh mày có hẳn hai con xe Honda đấy nhớ!
- I have two Honda motorbikes!
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 人 (nin)). Một con người "a person" does not sound dehumanizing, but literary even, while một người sounds casual enough.
- The phrase con người is popularly employed as 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.