conceive

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verb con·ceive \ kən-ˈsēv \

Definition of conceive

conceived; conceiving

transitive verb

1 a :to become pregnant with (young)

conceive a child

b :to cause to begin :originate

a project conceived by the company's founder

2 a :to take into one's mind

conceive a prejudice

b :to form a conception of :imagine

a badly conceived design

cleverly conceived teleplays

3 :to apprehend by reason or imagination :understand

unable to conceive his reasons

It is easy enough to conceive the notion that your island is a sort of fortress.
—Paul Theroux

4 :to have as an opinion

I cannot conceive that he acted alone.

intransitive verb

1 :to become pregnant

2 :to have a conception —usually used with of

conceives of death as emptiness

It is hard to conceive of all the work that must have been involved in starting off from scratch.
—Harold Fromm

—

conceiver

noun

See conceive defined for English-language learners

See conceive defined for kids

Examples of conceive in a Sentence

When the writer conceived this role, he had a specific actor in mind to play the part.
As conceived by the committee, the bill did not raise taxes.
a woman who has been unable to conceive
a woman who has been unable to conceive a child

Recent Examples of conceive from the Web

But Record Store Day, an event conceived by independent shops about 10 years ago, has sparked a resurgence.

— william thornton, AL.com, "40 years of vinyl dreams at Birmingham's Charlemagne Record Exchange," 25 Aug. 2017
Barr, who played basketball with Curry at Davidson College, conceived of Slyce while in business school at Stanford.

— ira boudway, Bloomberg.com, "The New Off-Court Play for NBA Stars Is Startup Equity," 24 Aug. 2017
Cliveden House was first conceived by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who had commissioned the property as a monument to his mistress Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, in the late 17th century.

— keith flanagan, Town & Country, "Is This the Most Scandalous Hotel in England?," 26 July 2017
This photo has the power to convince an entire generation of women to conceive.

— laura beck, Cosmopolitan, "Prince George's Official 4th Birthday Portrait Is Truly the Most Adorable Photo of All Time," 22 July 2017
Originally conceived as another outlet for Jessica Koslow’s splendid jams, Sqirl grew into the neighborhood commissary.

— garrett snyder, Los Angeles Magazine, "The Los Angeles Magazine Hot Restaurant List for July 2017," 18 July 2017
Those first clones, the brainchildren of Lao Chen, were the actual children of several of her graduate students, conceived by the technique used to create the first cloned sheep.

— The Economist, "If human cloning happenedHow the story of human cloning could unfold," 13 July 2017
Without carbon there would be no polymers with which to make either wool or rubber, no muscles with which to rub the two together, no brains to conceive of doing so—or of explaining what happens afterwards.

— The Economist, "If the universe was not “fine-tuned”Reflections on the fine-structure constant," 13 July 2017
Instead, it is made up of lines of computer code conceived in 2009 by a coder working under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

— sonia zhuravlyova, MSNBC Newsweek, "The Future of Money: Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrency Technologies Are a Way of Life in This Small Swiss Town," 11 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'conceive.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of conceive

Middle English, from Anglo-French conceivre, from Latin concipere to take in, conceive, from com- + capere to take — more at heave

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First Known Use: 14th century

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conceive Synonyms

Synonyms

conceit [chiefly dialect], imagine, conjure (up), dream, envisage, envision, fancy, fantasize, fantasy, feature, ideate, image, picture, see, vision, visualize

Antonyms

miss

Related Words

daydream, stargaze; hallucinate; re-create, reflect, relive, reminisce; contemplate, meditate, muse, ponder, ruminate; concoct, fabricate, invent, make up, manufacture, plan, project; foresee, prefigure

Near Antonyms

misapprehend, misconceive, misconstrue, misinterpret, misperceive, misread, mistake, misunderstand

Synonym Discussion of conceive

think, conceive, imagine, fancy, realize, envisage, envision mean to form an idea of. think implies the entrance of an idea into one's mind with or without deliberate consideration or reflection.

- I just thought of a good joke

conceive suggests the forming and bringing forth and usually developing of an idea, plan, or design.

- conceived of a new marketing approach

imagine stresses a visualization.

- imagine you're at the beach

fancy suggests an imagining often unrestrained by reality but spurred by desires.

- fancied himself a super athlete

realize stresses a grasping of the significance of what is conceived or imagined.

- realized the enormity of the task ahead

envisage and envision imply a conceiving or imagining that is especially clear or detailed.

- envisaged a totally computerized operation
- envisioned a cure for the disease

CONCEIVE Defined for English Language Learners

conceive

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verb

Definition of conceive for English Language Learners

: to think of or create (something) in the mind
: to become pregnant

CONCEIVE Defined for Kids

conceive

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verb con·ceive \ kən-ˈsēv \

Definition of conceive for Students

conceived; conceiving

1 :to form an idea of :imagine

She is unable to conceive how it happened.

2 :think 1

He was generally conceived of as a genius.

Medical Dictionary

conceive

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verb con·ceive \ kən-ˈsēv \

medical Definition of conceive

conceived; conceiving

transitive verb

:to become pregnant with (young)

intransitive verb

:to become pregnant

Learn More about conceive

See words that rhyme with conceive Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for conceive Spanish Central: Translation of conceive Nglish: Translation of conceive for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of conceive for Arabic speakers

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conceiver

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CONCEIVE Defined for English Language Learners

conceive

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conceive

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conceive

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