Meaning & use
conditioned
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Taught by repeated experience to react in a set way, often without thinking about it.
Grammar: Often followed by to and an infinitive: conditioned to expect praise.
Patterns
- conditioned to do something
- conditioned by something
Years of deadlines had conditioned him to wake before dawn.
The dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of the bell.
We are conditioned by advertising to want the latest model.
adjectivebefore a noun
Brought into a stated state of fitness, quality, or comfort, especially of air, hair, or the body.
Grammar: Often part of a compound: air-conditioned, well-conditioned.
Patterns
- air-conditioned something
- well-conditioned something
The conditioned air in the cinema felt wonderfully cool.
She left her freshly conditioned hair loose.
The athletes arrived well conditioned after months of training.
adjectiveafter a verbformal
Dependent on something else happening or being true first.
Grammar: Usually followed by on or upon: conditioned on approval.
Patterns
- conditioned on something
Payment is conditioned on the work passing inspection.
Her offer was conditioned upon his agreement to move.
The loan is conditioned on proof of income.
Common combinations
- conditioned response
- A salivating dog hearing a bell is a classic conditioned response.
- conditioned reflex
- Flinching at the sound is a conditioned reflex.
- socially conditioned
- Many attitudes are socially conditioned from childhood.
- conditioned to expect
- Shoppers are conditioned to expect discounts in November.
- air-conditioned room
- We waited in an air-conditioned room to escape the heat.
Synonyms and how they differ
- trained
- Trained suggests deliberate teaching, while conditioned often describes a habit absorbed without anyone planning it.
- accustomed
- Accustomed means used to something, but conditioned adds that the reaction has become automatic.
- programmed
- Programmed is stronger and often figurative, suggesting very little choice.
- habituated
- Habituated is a formal word for becoming used to a repeated stimulus, and it lacks the learning-by-reward link of conditioned.
Opposites
Word family
- condition verb
- to train someone to respond in a particular way
- conditioning noun
- the process of learning an automatic response
- conditioner noun
- a product or device that improves a state, such as hair conditioner
- unconditioned adjective
- not learned, as in an instinctive reflex
Commonly confused: conditioned or conditional?
conditioned vs conditional
Conditional means depending on a condition, whereas conditioned usually means trained to respond a certain way.
Practice
After years of unpredictable phone calls, the nurse had become ______ to wake instantly at any sound.
Choose one answer.
Conditioned to do something describes an automatic response learned from repeated experience. Conditional would need a different structure and means dependent.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “conditioned”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.