Article describes 4 elements of conservatism... and that at least 2 must be present to be a conservative.  Poorly written, imo, but content is worth the read.

http://www.princeton.edu/~jmueller/JPI-Conservatism-JWMueller.pdf

I think I know what a conservative is... but I was interested in whether there is some authoritative definition against which I can bounce my own definition or modify it accordingly.

It turns out there are definitions, academically defined, of conservatism, as well as traditional views by conservatives.  The traditional views ...