Make Your Point: CONDUIT

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pronounce CONDUIT:

KON doo it

connect this word to others:

If the word conduit seems to roll pleasantly off your tongue, thank the French! We took this word directly from Old French, and it traces further back to a Latin word for "pipe," conductus, which is from ducere, "to lead."

See if you can recall a word that also traces to ducere and is closely related to conduit: the adjective con______, meaning "helpful: leading to a certain purpose or goal."

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

(Source)

In the most literal sense of the word, a conduit is a pipe, tube, or channel that allows for liquids or electrical wires to pass through it.

Notice how conduits, like the ones pictured above, are both protective and directional: they allow for things to flow through them safely and directly. So in a figurative sense, a conduit is a thing or person that, like a pipe, lets things pass through—safely and directly—to other things or people.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Noun, the countable kind: "A translator of poetry must be conduits for everything about the originals, not just meaning but also sound and style."

Other forms:

The plural noun is "conduits."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, common word "conduit" when you want to emphasize the safe, direct flow of certain things to certain people.

Say that someone or something is a conduit of or for things (probably money, power, or information) to whoever or whatever is receiving those things.

Or just call something a conduit through which people send or convey things. Here's John Locke: "Language being the great Conduit, whereby Men convey... Knowledge, from one to another."

examples:

"The National Research Council... [was] founded in 1916 as a conduit of government funds to academic institutions."
— Michael Hiltzik, Big Science, 2015

"Mr. Smith finds himself in a curious dual role. To hard-partying urban readers, he is a voice of a generation... But he is also a conduit for corporate America to reach that elusive audience."
— Alex Williams, New York Times, 16 August 2010

has this page helped you understand "conduit"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "conduit" without saying "channel" or "pipeline."

try it out:

In her book Becoming, Michelle Obama describes a role she fulfilled while working for a law firm:

"As Barack's adviser, I was meant to act as a social conduit more than anything. My assignment was to make sure he was happy in the job, that he had someone to come to if he needed advice, and that he felt connected to the larger team. It was the start of a larger wooing process—the idea being, as it was with all summer associates, that the firm might want to recruit him for a full-time job once he had his law degree."

Based on this description, would you enjoy working as a social conduit for your colleagues? Why or why not?

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Recapitate the Headlines."

I'll give you some real but decapitated headlines, along with a selection of heads, and you try to reassemble them as they were originally published. (Or, feel free to play in "wrong answers only" mode, assembling the headlines in whatever way you find funniest.) You can check out some examples here.

Try these today:

__________ to blow up
__________ to clean up its AI mess
__________ to tackle rat population

Brussels considers recruiting ferrets
Microsoft buys more than a billion dollars’ worth of excrement, including human poop,
US Air Force eyes purchase of Tesla Cybertrucks

To see the correct versions, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. The opposite of a CONDUIT could be

A. an ERROR.
B. a POISON.
C. a BARRIER.

2. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick wrote that "the conduits of [Rick's] brain [were] humming," drawing a comparison between Rick's mind and a network of _____.

A. hazy memories or dreams
B. creepy robots or AI chatbots
C. flowing liquids or electricity

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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