conceive

English

Alternative forms

• conceave (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English conceyven, from Old French concevoir, conceveir, from Latin concipiō, concipere (“to devise, to conceive”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kənˈsiːv/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːv

Verb

conceive (third-person singular simple present conceives, present participle conceiving, simple past and past participle conceived)

2. (transitive, intransitive) To have a child; to become pregnant (with).

   Assisted procreation can help those trying to 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.

3. (transitive) 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 Strahan; and T 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.

   • 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.

   • 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—...

5. (transitive, intransitive with of, ditransitive) To imagine (as); to have a conception of; to form a representation of.

   Can you conceive of him as a leader?

   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed 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.

   • 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 Motte , published 1738, →OCLC, page lxii:

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

   • 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.

   • 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.

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

     I conceive you.

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• “conceive”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “conceive”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Middle English

Verb

conceive

1. Alternative form of conceyven