conjuncture

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con·junc·ture

(kən-jŭngk′chər)

1. A combination, as of events or circumstances: "the power that lies in the conjuncture of faith and fatherland" (Conor Cruise O'Brien).

2. A critical set of circumstances; a crisis: "reports on the deteriorating world conjuncture and the disappointment of earlier hopes" (Financial Times).

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

conjuncture

(kənˈdʒʌŋktʃə)

1. a combination of events, esp a critical one

2. rare a union; conjunction

conˈjunctural adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

con•junc•ture

(kənˈdʒʌŋk tʃər)

n.

1. a combination of circumstances; a particular state of affairs.

2. a critical state of affairs; crisis.

3. conjunction; joining.

[1595–1605]

con•junc′tur•al, adj.

Conjuncture

the meeting of events or circumstances.

Examples: conjuncture of accidents, 1736; of affairs, 1768; of atmosphere or other circumstances, 1853; grand conjuncture (when several planets or stars are found together); of principles.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun

conjuncture - a critical combination of events or circumstances

juncture, occasion - an event that occurs at a critical time; "at such junctures he always had an impulse to leave"; "it was needed only on special occasions"

Translations

congiuntura momento di crisi circostanza

conjuncture

[kənˈdʒʌŋktʃəʳ] N → coyuntura f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

conjuncture

n → Zusammentreffen nt

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

conjuncture

[kənˈdʒʌŋktʃəʳ] n (frm) → congiuntura

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

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References in classic literature ?

As there are three things which claim an equal rank in the state, freedom, riches, and virtue (for as for the fourth, rank, it is an attendant on two of the others, for virtue and riches are the origin of family), it is evident, that the conjuncture of the rich and the poor make up a free state; but that all three tend to an aristocracy more than any other, except that which is truly so, which holds the first rank.

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For the bourgeois of Paris were aware that it is not sufficient to pray in every conjuncture, and to plead for the franchises of the city, and they had always in reserve, in the garret of the town hall, a few good rusty arquebuses.

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He considered with some irony the philosophy which he had developed for himself, for it had not been of much use to him in the conjuncture he had passed through; and he wondered whether thought really helped a man in any of the critical affairs of life: it seemed to him rather that he was swayed by some power alien to and yet within himself, which urged him like that great wind of Hell which drove Paolo and Francesca ceaselessly on.

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If Miss Pink could, by any possible conjuncture of circumstances, have disappeared mysteriously from her house and her friends, the police would have found the greatest difficulty in composing the necessary description of the missing lady.

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At this conjuncture, they were joined by Billy Kirby, who came along the highway, with his axe under his arm, as much in advance of his team as Captain Hollister had been of his troops in the ascent.

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From all these mysterious movements, the old man was aware that a crisis was at hand, and he summoned the utmost knowledge he had acquired, in so long a life, to aid him in the desperate conjuncture. While musing on the means to be employed, the Doctor again attracted his attention to himself, by a piteous appeal for assistance.

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And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them belonged.

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He advised great statesmen to examine into the diet of all suspected persons; their times of eating; upon which side they lay in bed; with which hand they wipe their posteriors; take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool, which he found by frequent experiment; for, in such conjunctures, when he used, merely as a trial, to consider which was the best way of murdering the king, his ordure would have a tincture of green; but quite different, when he thought only of raising an insurrection, or burning the metropolis.

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And as to those mortal feuds which, in certain conjunctures, spread a conflagration through a whole nation, or through a very large proportion of it, proceeding either from weighty causes of discontent given by the government or from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm, they do not fall within any ordinary rules of calculation.

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Then there will be no blood, no groans, no convulsions, and above all, no consciousness of that horrid and compromising moment of accomplishing the act, -- then one escapes the clutch of the human law, which says, `Do not disturb society!' This is the mode in which they manage these things, and succeed in Eastern climes, where there are grave and phlegmatic persons who care very little for the questions of time in conjunctures of importance."

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He needed all her assistance and all her loyalty in these new conjunctures his fatalism had already accepted.