What's the difference between "Conference" and "Meeting"?

See:The meeting will be held in a conference room at 10:00 am.

Is there any problem if I change the position of these two words in the sentence like "The conference will be held in a meeting room at 10 am"?

Solution 1:

Short answer: no conferences belong in conference rooms. Meetings you can potentially have anywhere.

conference from Latin conferre (bring together)

which is almost the same like meeting

Meeting is more of an encounter.

A conference (a bringing together) implies more effort. Usually a conference also takes longer than a (relatively quick) meeting.

So a meeting room might just be a simple room for a quick meeting. (all meeting rooms these days, at least at my workplace, seem to have conference capable phones in here anyway, so the distinction is blurry)

A conference room might be more sophisticated with video conferencing equipment or dedicated presentation facilities.

You can have a meeting in a conference room, as you can meet in any other room say the kitchen or bathroom.

You could also have a conference in the canteen, or the bathroom even though I don't think that is considered best practice.

So having a conference in a meeting room might not make sense, since the meeting room might be to small and lack the proper equipment. Speaker facilities, video conferencing facilities.

Solution 2:

As your question suggests, the two meanings can overlap. Around here (northeast US), conference implies that three or more people or organizations are involved. (This also matches the meaning of conference call, a phone call among three or more people.) Meeting implies that it occurs at a specific time and place.

As one example, conference is used to refer to an organized gathering of professionals in a given field, which could have some meetings scheduled as part of the overarching conference.