conversion

The broad sense the specialized ones branch from. It reached English through Anglo-Norman from Latin conversiō, the noun formed on convertō. The preposition carries much of the meaning: conversion to a faith, conversion of one thing into another, conversion from one format to another. Francis Bacon writes of the "artificial conversion of water into ice" in 1627, so physical change belongs here as fully as change of belief.

The gridiron cousin of the rugby kick, with a choice the rugby version lacks. After a touchdown, a team can kick the ball through the uprights for one point or carry it into the end zone for two. The noun covers the attempt as well as the score, so a team can line up for a conversion, make one, or fail at it.

Rugby uses the verb along with the noun. A try is converted when the kicker sends the ball over the crossbar and between the posts, by place kick or drop kick. Players convert a try or miss the conversion, and a try left unconverted earns nothing more. Kick the conversion and convert the try describe the same moment from two sides.

Online advertising counts its successes in conversions, and the advertiser decides what counts: a purchase, a registration, a download. Each completed action is one conversion, so the word is freely plural. It is usually reported as a rate against clicks or impressions. Marketers watch that conversion rate to judge whether an ad or landing page is doing its job.

The space is named by what it used to be: a loft conversion, a cellar conversion, a garage conversion. The word covers both the building work and the rooms that result. A conversion can therefore take months, or be said to add a quarter to a home's value. Before another noun, the pair is often hyphenated, as in a garage-conversion apartment.

Linguists also call it zero-derivation, because nothing is added. The noun email simply starts working as a verb. The test is that the spelling stays put while the part of speech changes. Do not confuse it with the logician's term, where conversion swaps the terms of a proposition rather than the grammar of a word.

Chemists use the word for a number as well as an event. Besides the change itself, conversion means the fraction of starting material that has been consumed. That is why it is measured at a set time and reported as a figure, as in conversion after one hour or complete conversion. The usual frame is the conversion of a reactant into a product.

A civil wrong rather than a crime, and an old one. Samuel Butler's Hudibras threatens to "bring my action of conversion / And trover for my goods." The remedy is the striking part: the wrongdoer pays the property's whole value, as though forced to buy it. One sues for conversion of a particular thing, such as a horse. Taking, withholding and destroying all qualify.

A games-press word for the finished port rather than the work of porting. Crash, in its December 1988 issue, praises "the excellent coin-op conversions Bubble Bobble and Bionic Commando," arcade games remade for home computers. Because it names a product, a conversion can be reviewed, scored and compared with its original, which the general act of converting cannot.

Subject and predicate trade places, and the logician's question is when that is safe. The swap is valid without restriction for universal negatives such as No birds are mammals, and for particular affirmatives. A universal affirmative such as All dogs are animals cannot simply be turned round. It converts only in a limited form, to Some animals are dogs.

A mathematician's sense, found in phrases like the conversion of equations and the conversion of proportions. A statement is reworked into another form or value, often a simpler one. The logician's swap of terms only exchanges subject and predicate, but this kind of conversion may reshape the whole expression.

Hobby slang from tabletop gaming, where modelers build characters no box contains. Hobbyists make a conversion by kitbashing (combining parts from several kits), by resculpting with putty, or by both. The word names the finished figure as readily as the work: her conversion, a clever conversion. Outside the hobby, a modified or customized figure is the clearer phrase.