conceive

present singular third person conceives · participle present conceiving · participle past conceived · past conceived · alternative obsolete conceave · alternative misspelling concieve

1. ambitransitiveTo have a child; to become pregnant (with).

   Assisted procreation can help those trying to conceive.

   1 more example

   She hath also conceived a son in her old age.

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

2. transitiveTo develop; to form in the mind; to imagine.

   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.

   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

   3 more examples

   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.

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

   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—...

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

   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.

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

3. ambitransitiveditransitivewith ofTo imagine (as); to have a conception of; to form a representation of.

   Can you conceive of him as a leader?

   4 more examples

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

   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

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

   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

   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.

   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

   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.

   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

4. transitiveTo understand (someone).

   I conceive you.

   1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 3, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC