Alternative forms

• conceave (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle EnglishCategory:English terms inherited from Middle English#CONCEIVECategory:English terms derived from Middle English#CONCEIVE conceyven, from Old FrenchCategory:English terms derived from Old French#CONCEIVE concevoir, conceveir, from LatinCategory:English terms derived from Latin#CONCEIVE concipiō, concipere (“to devise, to conceive”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kənˈsiːv/Category:English 2-syllable words#CONCEIVECategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#CONCEIVE

• Audio (US):

  (file)

  Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#CONCEIVE
• Rhymes: -iːvCategory:Rhymes:English/iːv#CONCEIVECategory:Rhymes:English/iːv/2 syllables#CONCEIVE

Verb

conceive (third-person singular simple present conceives, present participle conceiving, simple past and past participle conceived)Category:English lemmas#CONCEIVECategory:English verbs#CONCEIVECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CONCEIVECategory:Pages with entries#CONCEIVECategory:Pages with 2 entries#CONCEIVE

2. (ambitransitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CONCEIVECategory:English intransitive verbs#CONCEIVE) To have a child; to become pregnant (with).

   Assisted procreation can help those trying to conceive.

   Category:English terms with usage examples#CONCEIVE

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:36:

     She hath also conceived a son in her old age.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

3. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CONCEIVE) To develop; to form in the mind; to imagine.
   • 1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC:

     It was among the ruins of the Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twenty years of my life.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     At the mouth of the cave we found a single litter with six bearers, all of them mutes, waiting, and with them I was relieved to see our old friend Billali, for whom I had conceived a sort of affection.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

   • 1890, Thomas Tyler, Shakespeare's Sonnets‎, D. Nutt, page 81:

     There are, moreover, grounds for thinking that the Rosaline of Love’s Labour’s Lost was originally conceived of by Shakespeare as pale with black eyes—...

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

   • 1980 December 6, Nancy Walker, “Toodle-Oo, Doodle”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 20, page 12:

     The car cost $700 initially. The subsequent cost was mounting out of sight, but I had conceived an extraordinary fondness for the bug, and my sother had conceived an extraordinary fondness for me, so she allowed my passion for the car to ransack our savings.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

5. (ambitransitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CONCEIVECategory:English intransitive verbs#CONCEIVE with of, ditransitiveCategory:English ditransitive verbs#CONCEIVE) To imagine (as); to have a conception of; to form a representation of.

   Can you conceive of him as a leader?Category:English terms with usage examples#CONCEIVE

   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals), page 4:

     We shall, / As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount / Before you, Lepidus.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

   • 1731 (date written), Simon Wagstaff [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], “An Introduction to the Following Treatise”, in A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, […], London: […] B[enjamin] Motte […], published 1738, →OCLC, page lxii:

     […] you will hardly conceive him to have been bred in the ſame Climate […]

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter III, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

   • 2008 [c. 65 CE], Seneca the Younger, “Letter on Slaves”, in Andrew Bailey et al., editors, The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought, volume 1, →ISBN, page 258:

     Remember, if you please, that the man you call slave sprang from the same seed, enjoys the same daylight, breathes like you, lives like you, dies like you. You can as easily conceive him a free man as he can conceive you a slave.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

6. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CONCEIVE) To understand (someone).
   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 3, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:

     I conceive you.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CONCEIVE

Further reading

• “conceive”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “conceive”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Verb

conceiveCategory:Middle English alternative forms#CONCEIVECategory:Middle English entries with incorrect language header#CONCEIVECategory:Pages with entries#CONCEIVECategory:Pages with 2 entries#CONCEIVE

1. alternative form of conceyven