Definition of: conversion

(kən·vûr′zhən, -shən) noun
1. The act of converting, or the state of being converted, in any sense.
2. The act of turning or of being turned to religious belief.
3. Law a Wrongful appropriation to one's own use of the goods of another. b The exchange of real to personal property or the reverse, which is considered to have taken place where no actual exchange has been effected, as in settling the affairs of an estate.
4. Logic A form of immediate inference in which the subject and predicate or antecedent and consequent terms of a judgment change places in such a way that the converse or transposed form is a legitimate inference from the original judgment.
5. Math. The formation of a new proportion from four proportional terms by substituting for the second the difference between the first and second and for the fourth the difference between the third and fourth.
6. Psychoanal. The process by which a psychic conflict finds expression in motor or sensory disturbances associated with and partially satisfying the repressed emotion or desire; also conversion hysteria; see REPRESSION. See synonyms under CHANGE.
—con·ver′sion·al, con·ver·sion·ar·y (kan·vûr′zhən·er′ē, -shən-) adjective