conditional

• conditionall (obsolete)

From Old French condicionel (French conditionnel).

• IPA^(key): /kənˈdɪʃ.ə.nəl/, /kənˈdɪʃ.nəl/

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conditional (not comparable)

1. Limited by a condition.

   I made my son a conditional promise: I would buy him a bike if he kept his room tidy.

   • 1753, William Warburton, The Character and Conduct of the Messengers:

     Every covenant of God with man […] may justly be made (as in fact it is made) with this conditional punishment annexed and declared.

2. (logic) Stating that one sentence is true if another is.

   "A implies B" is a conditional statement.

   • 1826, Richard Whately, Elements of Logic:

     A conditional proposition is one which asserts the dependence of one categorical proposition on another.

3. (grammar) Expressing a condition or supposition.

   a conditional word, mode, or tense

conditional (plural conditionals)

1. (grammar) A conditional sentence; a statement that depends on a condition being true or false.
2. (grammar) The conditional mood.
3. (logic) A statement that one sentence is true if another is.

   "A implies B" is a conditional.

   • 1867, Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater, Manual of Elementary Logic, quoted in OED:

     Disjunctives may be turned into conditionals

4. (programming) An instruction that branches depending on the truth of a condition at that point.

   if and while are conditionals in some programming languages.

5. A condition (a limitation or restriction).
   • 1832, John Bradford, Memoirs of the Life and Martyrdom of John Bradford, page 69:

     The former is called the law, which hath his promises, conditionals, and comminations or threats, accordingly; the other is called the gospel, or rather the free promises hanging not on conditions on our behalf, but simply on God's verity and mercy, although they require conditions, but not as hanging thereon; of which promises the gospel may well be called a publication.

   • 1837, The Letters of the Martyrs: Collected and Published in 1564, page 363:

     GOD grant us to be clean beasts, to cleave the hoofs accordingly, that is, to give the old man meat, meet for the owers, that is, the law with his appurtenances, conditionals, promises, and comminations; and to give to the new man the gospel and sweet free promises, as appertaineth; and then doubtless we shall walk in the right high-way unto eternal life, that is, in Christ Jesus, the end of the law and the fulfilling of the promises, in whome they be yea and Amen.

   • 1853, John Owen, edited by Rev. William H. Goold, The Works of John Owen, D. D., page 640:

     For mine own part, I confess I do not in any measure think it needful to insist upon the conditionals of these assertions of the Holy Ghost, as to the removal of any or all the oppositions that from them, of old or of late, have been raised and framed against the doctrine of the saints' perseverance, there being in neither of the texts insisted on either name or thing inquired after, nor any one of all the severals inquired into, and constantly in the Scriptures used, in the description of the saints and believers of whom we speak.

   • 2009, Dennis J. Roberts, Mergers & Acquisitions:

     There were so many ways to answer, yet each potential response seemed out of context, inadequate. The problem with context—and any conditionals I might apply in my answer—was the high risk that Jim and Margot dismiss it all as “hedging,” as positioning myself to win the engagement.

   • 2018, John D. Laing, Middle Knowledge: Human Freedom in Divine Sovereignty:

     Sanders questions this move under a model that assumes comprehensive divine foreknowledge because there aren't any conditionals; the outcome is certain: “How can a conditional promise be genuine if God already foreknows the human response and so foreknows that he will, in fact, never fulfill the promise?"

• (in logic): if-then statement; material conditional

• (in logic): antecedent
• (in logic): consequent