foreconceive

F4O1R1E1C3O1N1C3E1I1V4E1

verb

To conceive or imagine beforehand; preconceive.

Scrabble 22
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Meanings

verbforeconceive (third-person singular simple present foreconceives, present participle foreconceiving, simple past and past participle foreconceived)

present singular third person foreconceives · participle present foreconceiving · participle past foreconceived · past foreconceived

  1. transitiveTo conceive or imagine beforehand; preconceive.

    I found my selfe glutted and ful of drink by the overmuch swilling that my imagination had fore-conceived.

    1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
    2 more examples

    To imagine the new is to foreconceive, as in the Heideggerian Vorlage, which can only be expressed in language.

    2007, Christopher D. Morris, The Figure of the Road

    Thus one ought to “color”—foreconceive or frame—the other. The more familiar will be thought to be an example, Aristotle says, yet he also defines the example as this total relation of incompleteness: part to part (without wholes).

    2012, Irene E. Harvey, Labyrinths of Exemplarity: At the Limits of Deconstruction

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
preconceive

Origin

From fore- + conceive.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

foreconceive. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foreconceive

MLA

“foreconceive.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foreconceive. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “foreconceive,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foreconceive.

Source: foreconceive on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.