conversation [ME] In Latin conversare meant ‘to mix with people’. This is the source of conversation, which once meant ‘living among’ and ‘familiarity or intimacy’. The poet John Milton uses the word in this latter sense when he refers in 1645 to ‘the good and peace of wedded conversation’. It could also at one time mean ‘sexual intercourse’, and criminal conversation was a legal term for adultery. The ‘talking’ sense dates from the late 16th century. See also chat.