CONDUCT, noun [Latin , to lead. See Duke.]

1. Literally, the act of leading; guidance; command. So Waller has used it.

CONDUCT of armies is a princes art.

2. The act of convoying, or guarding; guidance or brining along under protection.

3. Guard on the way; convoy; escort.

[These senses are now unusual, though not improper.]

4. In a general sense, personal behavior; course of actions; deportment; applicable equally to a good or a bad course of actions; as laudable conduct; detestable conduct The word seems originally to have been followed with life, actions, affairs, or other term; as the conduct of life; the conduct of actions; that is, the leading along of life or actions.

Young men in the conduct and manage of actions embrace more than they can hold.

What in the conduct of our life appears.

But by custom, conduct alone is now used to express the idea of behavior or course of life and manners.

5. Exact behavior; regular life. [Unusual.]

6. Management; mode of carrying on.

Christianity has humanized the conduct of war.

7. The title of two clergymen appointed to read prayers at Eton College in England.

CONDUCT, verb transitive

1. To lead; to bring along; to guide; to accompany and show the way.

And Judah came to Gilgal--to conduct the king over Jordan. 2 Samuel 19:15.

2. To lead; to direct or point out the way.

The precepts of Christ will conduct us to happiness.

3. To lead; to usher in; to introduce; to attend in civility.

Pray receive them nobly, and conduct them into our presence.

4. To give a direction to; to manage; applied to things; as, the farmer conducts his affairs with prudence.

5. To lead, as a commander; to direct; to govern; to command; as, to conduct an army or a division of troops.

6. With the reciprocal pronoun, to conduct ones self, is to behave. Hence, by a customary omission of the pronoun, to conduct in an intransitive sense, is to behave; to direct personal actions. [See the Noun.]

7. To escort; to accompany and protect on the way.