CONDITION, n. [L., to build or make, to ordain; properly, to set or fix, or to set together or in order; con and do, to give; properly, to send.]

1. State; a particular mode of being; applied to external circumstances, to the body, to the mind, and to things. We speak of a good condition or a bad condition, in reference to wealth and poverty; in reference to health and sickness; in reference to a cheerful or depressed disposition of mind; and with reference to a sound or broken, perishing state of things. The word signifies a setting or fixing, and has a very general and indefinite application, coinciding nearly with state, from sto, to stand, and denotes that particular frame, form, mode, or disposition, in which a thing exits, at any given time. A man is in a good condition, when he is thriving. A nation, with an exhausted treasury, and burdened with taxes, is not in a condition to make war. A poor man is in a humble condition. Religion affords consolation to man in every condition of life. Exhortations should be adapted to the condition of the mind. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; / Bliss is the same in subject or in king. – Pope.
2. Quality; property; attribute. It seemed to us a condition and property of divine powers and beings to be hidden and unseen to others. Bacon.
3. State of the mind; temper; temperament; complexion. [See No. 1.] Shak.
4. Moral quality; virtue or vice. – Ralegh. South. [These senses however fall within the first definition.]
5. Rank, that is, state with respect to the orders or grades of society, or to property; as, persons of the best condition. – Clarendon.
6. Terms of a contract or covenant; stipulation; that is, that which is set, fixed, established or proposed. What are the conditions of the treaty? Make our conditions with yon captive king. – Dryden. He sendeth and desireth conditions of peace. – Luke xiv.
7. A clause in a bond, or other contract containing terms or a stipulation that it is to be performed, and in case of failure, the penalty of the bond is to be incurred.
8. Terms given, or provided, as the ground of something else; that which is established, or to be done, or to happen, as requisite to another act; as, I will pay a sum of money, on condition you will engage to refund it. A condition is a clause of contingency, on the happening of which the estate granted may be defeated. – Blackstone.

To make terms; to stipulate; as, it is one thing to condition for a good office, and another to execute it.

To contract; to stipulate. It was conditioned between Saturn and Titan, that Saturn should put to death all his male children. – Ralegh.

1. Mode or state of being; state or situation with regard to external circumstances or influences, or to physical or mental integrity, health, strength, etc.; predicament; rank; position, estate.
   
   

   I am in my condition
   A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king.
   Shak.

   And O, what man's condition can be worse
   Than his whom plenty starves and blessings curse?
   Cowley.

   The new conditions of life.
   Darwin.

2. To make terms] to stipulate.
   
   

   Pay me back my credit,
   And I'll condition with ye.
   Beau. *** Fl.

3. To invest with, or limit by, conditions] to burden or qualify by a condition; to impose or be imposed as the condition of.
   
   

   Seas, that daily gain upon the shore,
   Have ebb and flow conditioning their march.
   Tennyson.

4. Essential quality; property; attribute.
   
   

   It seemed to us a condition and property of divine powers and beings to be hidden and unseen to others.
   Bacon.

5. To impose upon an object those relations or conditions without which knowledge and thought are alleged to be impossible.
   
   

   To think of a thing is to condition.
   Sir W. Hamilton.

6. To contract; to stipulate; to agree.
   
   

   It was conditioned between Saturn and Titan, that Saturn should put to death all his male children.
   Sir W. Raleigh.

7. Temperament; disposition; character.
   
   
   [Obs.]

   The condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil.
   Shak.

8. To put under conditions; to require to pass a new examination or to make up a specified study, as a condition of remaining in one's class or in college; as, to condition a student who has failed in some branch of study.
9. That which must exist as the occasion or concomitant of something else; that which is requisite in order that something else should take effect; an essential qualification; stipulation; terms specified.
   
   

   I had as lief take her dowry with this condition, to be whipped at the high cross every morning.
   Shak.

   Many are apt to believe remission of sins, but they believe it without the condition of repentance.
   Jer. Taylor.

10. To test or assay, as silk (to ascertain the proportion of moisture it contains).
    
    
    McElrath.
11. A clause in a contract, or agreement, which has for its object to suspend, to defeat, or in some way to modify, the principal obligation; or, in case of a will, to suspend, revoke, or modify a devise or bequest. It is also the case of a future uncertain event, which may or may not happen, and on the occurrence or non-occurrence of which, the accomplishment, recission, or modification of an obligation or testamentary disposition is made to depend.
    
    
    Blount. Tomlins. Bouvier. Wharton.

    Equation of condition. (Math.) See under Equation. -- On or Upon condition (that), used for if in introducing conditional sentences. "Upon condition thou wilt swear to pay him tribute . . . thou shalt be placed as viceroy under him." Shak. -- Conditions of sale, the terms on which it is proposed to sell property by auction; also, the instrument containing or expressing these terms.

    Syn. -- State; situation; circumstances; station; case; mode; plight; predicament; stipulation; qualification; requisite; article; provision; arrangement. See State.