conditioning
Americannoun
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Also called operant conditioning, instrumental conditioning. a process of changing behavior by rewarding or punishing a subject each time an action is performed until the subject associates the action with pleasure or distress.
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Also called classical conditioning, Pavlovian conditioning, respondent conditioning. a process in which a stimulus that was previously neutral, as the sound of a bell, comes to evoke a particular response, as salivation, by being repeatedly paired with another stimulus that normally evokes the response, as the taste of food.
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adjective
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Origin of conditioning
Example Sentences
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For me, that’s compounded by the fact that I don’t have air conditioning anywhere in the house but for a small, rickety wall unit in the bedroom — and only installed recently.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
It’s supposed to identify who’s medically at risk in a cell with no air conditioning.
From Slate ● Jul. 31, 2026
Players returning so late miss much of pre-season's tactical work, conditioning sessions and friendly matches, creating a difficult balancing act between preparation and recovery.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
“If I get hot in my car and want some air conditioning, I just want to turn a knob and have cold air come out,” Doyle said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
Sure enough, by the end of cardio conditioning we felt like we were dying.
From "Courage to Soar" by Simone Biles
At both, the luxury treatment begins with a detailed scalp analysis followed by a neck and shoulder massage and repeated shampooings and conditionings.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2025
Francis Galton, pioneer student of the conditionings of human faculty, left an interesting study of the visualising capacity, so far as it could be attacked by the statistical method.
From The Glands Regulating Personality by Berman, Louis, M.D.
If we are to have a more rationalized form of social control, then, it will undoubtedly take into consideration the necessity of forming the socially desirable conditionings of the emotional life.
From Taboo and Genetics A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family by Knight, Melvin Moses
He sensed the change that possessed her, the struggling of new emotions, the shattering of imposed concepts and conditionings and their realigning to shape a new personality, a new person.
From Assignment's End by Aycock, Roger D.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
