Meanings
plural nonconceptions · alternative non-conception
- countableuncountableA failure to conceive; The aftermath of sexual intercourse in which there is no fertilization of an egg by sperm.
For all these reasons, I assume that nonconception is better than a constantly neutral life.
2019, Espen Gamlund, Carl Tollef Solberg, Saving People from the Harm of Death, page 1123 more examples
With this formulation, the probability of nonconception is simply the product of the day-specific failure probabilities multiplied across all days where there was intercourse.
1996, Biometrics, page 946A long period of nonconception, usually the two or three years after marriage, leads to worries of a possible medical problem in the couple.
2005, Vinita Bhargava, Adoption in India: Policies and Experiences, page 86In the case of nonconception, there is a loss of an enormous amount of possible future good but there is no victim of the loss, no existing individual whose good it would have been.
2002, Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life - countableuncountableAn unthought concept.
1 more example
It is to a nonconception of this plain truth, namely, that money is as much a marketable commodity as any of those things for which it is given in exchange, that we must ascribe the ignorance that prevails concerning the laws by which its value and its distribution are regulated, and of the consequences which follow when the natural operation of these laws is disturbed.
1836, The Monthly Review, page 384
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*né
- Proto-Germanic*ne
- Proto-Indo-European*ís?
- Proto-Indo-European*h₁óynos
- Proto-Germanic*ainaz
- Proto-Germanic*nainaz
- Proto-West Germanic*nain
- Old Englishnān
- Middle Englishnon
- Old Englishnān
- Old Englishnān-
- Middle Englishnon-
- Englishnon-
- Proto-Indo-European*ḱe?
- Proto-Indo-European*ḱóm
- Proto-Italic*kom
- Proto-Italic*kom-
- Latincon-
- Proto-Indo-European*kap-
- Proto-Indo-European*kapyéti
- Proto-Italic*kapjō
- Latincapiō
- Ancient Greekσῠλλᾰμβᾰ́νω (sŭllămbắnō)
- Latinconcipiō
- Latinconceptiō
- Old Frenchconception
- Middle Englishconcepcioun
- Englishconception
- Englishnonconception
From non- + conception.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
nonconception. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonconception
“nonconception.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonconception. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nonconception,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonconception.
Source: nonconception on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.