conceive

verb

con·ceive kən-ˈsēv

conceived; conceiving

Synonyms of conceive next

transitive verb

: to become pregnant with (young)

conceive a child

: to cause to begin : originate

a project conceived by the company's founder

: to take into one's mind

conceive a prejudice

: to form a conception of : imagine

a badly conceived design

cleverly conceived teleplays

: 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

: to have as an opinion

I cannot conceive that he acted alone.

intransitive verb

: to become pregnant

: 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

Choose the Right Synonym for 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

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 on the Web First, he’s conceived this strike as benefiting a group much larger than the 150,000 autoworkers represented by the UAW. —

Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 15 Sep. 2023 It was never conceived that that particular legal settlement would apply to foreign nationals. —

Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 15 Sep. 2023 According to a press release, the idea for the podcast was first conceived when the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) first went on strike in May. —

Kelly Martinez, Peoplemag, 15 Sep. 2023 It is conceived primarily to serve incoming freshmen, of whom there are many, some 574 by current enrollment records. —

James McCown, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Sep. 2023 The video was conceived by myself and Amber Schaefer, who brought the jet ski thing to life. —

Matthew Schnipper, Vogue, 13 Sep. 2023 This four-wheel-drive vehicle was not conceived as a shooting brake for swells on safari (although plenty of outgoing ordnance has been fired off its flanks). —

Frank Markus, Car and Driver, 9 Sep. 2023 All programming is conceived of, paid for and hosted by attendees. —

Katie Bain, Billboard, 8 Sep. 2023 Athena was born via surrogate, following Menounos’ decade-long journey to conceive. —

Charna Flam, Peoplemag, 8 Sep. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'conceive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.