English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English conceyven, from Old French concevoir, conceveir, from Latin concipiō, concipere (to devise, to conceive).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /kənˈsiːv/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -iːv

Verb

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conceive (third-person singular simple present conceives, present participle conceiving, simple past and past participle conceived)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To have a child; to become pregnant (with).
    Assisted procreation can help those trying to conceive.
  2. (transitive) To develop; to form in the mind; to imagine.
    • 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:
      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.
    • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 1890, Thomas Tyler, Shakespeare's Sonnets[1], D. Nutt, page 81:
      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—...
    • 1980 December 6, Nancy Walker, “Toodle-Oo, Doodle”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 20, page 12:
      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.
  3. (transitive, intransitive with of, ditransitive) To imagine (as); to have a conception of; to form a representation of.
    Can you conceive of him as a leader?
  4. (transitive) To understand (someone).

Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Middle English

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Verb

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conceive

  1. Alternative form of conceyven