# conditional

/kənˈdɪʃənəɫ/ (US) · /kəndˈɪʃənəl/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/conditional
Updated: 2026-07-22

## Senses

### 1. depending on a condition

adjective · CEFR B2

only happening or true if something else happens first.

For teachers: subject to or dependent on one or more conditions being met.

- The bank gave them a conditional offer on the house, depending on a survey.
- The peace treaty remained conditional upon the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from the disputed border regions.

### 2. grammar

adjective · CEFR B2 · Technical

describing a sentence or word that shows a condition, often using 'if'.

For teachers: expressing a condition or supposition; typically used to describe clauses or moods that indicate a hypothetical scenario.

- In the sentence 'If it rains, we will stay home,' the first part is a conditional clause.
- The student struggled to master the third conditional, which requires the past perfect in the 'if' clause and 'would have' in the main clause.

Usage: In linguistics, this often refers to 'if-then' structures.

### 3. a conditional statement

noun · CEFR C1 · Technical

a sentence or a piece of computer code that starts with 'if'.

For teachers: a statement, proposition, or grammatical mood that expresses a condition; in programming, a logic gate that branches based on a boolean value.

- The programmer added a conditional to the code to check if the user was logged in.
- The algorithm uses a series of nested conditionals to determine the optimal routing path based on real-time traffic data.

## Examples

- The job offer is conditional on a successful background check.
- We reached a conditional agreement to buy the house, provided that the inspection does not find any major problems.
- In formal logic, a conditional statement asserts that if the antecedent is true, then the consequent must also be true, establishing a strict dependency between the two components.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.