conferences

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of conference.

   The university hosts two academic conferences each year.

   Industry conferences draw thousands of attendees from around the world.

   Note

   A regular -s plural that gathers very different things under one spelling: diplomatic negotiations, scientific meetings with talks and posters, industry events, and groupings of sports teams that play one another regularly. In the Philippines it can also mean the separate tournaments that make up a league's season. The same spelling serves the verb form, so the sentence decides which is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of conference.

   Each professor conferences individually with students about their drafts.

   The manager conferences with remote staff over video each afternoon.

   Note

   A teacher's verb: to conference a student is to assess them through one-on-one conversation instead of an examination. It works with or without a direct object. A tutor conferences each student, or conferences with students, and both patterns are correct. Unlike the identical plural noun, this -s form never names an event. It names what someone does.

   She conferences each student before grades are posted.

   He conferences with his students at the end of every unit.

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