conceive - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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

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

  1. (ambitransitive) To have a child; to become pregnant (with).
    Assisted procreation can help those trying to conceive.
  2. (transitive) To develop; to form in the mind; to imagine.
    • 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[1], 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—...
    • 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.
  3. (ambitransitive 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 (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.
    • 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.
  4. (transitive) To understand (someone).

to develop an idea

to understand someone

to become pregnant

conceive

  1. alternative form of conceyven