CONCEIVE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Conceive

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/kənsˈiv/ Listen

verb

Conceive v. t. (past & past part. conceived; pres. part. conceiving)

1.

To receive into the womb and begin to breed; to begin the formation of the embryo of. "She hath also conceived a son in her old age."

2.

To form in the mind; to plan; to devise; to generate; to originate; as, to conceive a purpose, plan, hope. "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." "Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood."

3.

To apprehend by reason or imagination; to take into the mind; to know; to imagine; to comprehend; to understand. "I conceive you." "O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart Cannot conceive nor name thee!" "You will hardly conceive him to have been bred in the same climate."

Synonyms: To apprehend; imagine; suppose; understand; comprehend; believe; think.

Conceive v. i.

1.

To have an embryo or fetus formed in the womb; to breed; to become pregnant. "A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son."

2.

To have a conception, idea, or opinion; think; with of. "Conceive of things clearly and distinctly in their own natures."

See images of 'Conceive'

Etymology of 'Conceive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Conceive" Quotes from Famous Books

... dreadfully hard up a short time ago, and of course my bills were ten times as big as usual. I had no money coming in, and could not conceive how I was to meet ...

— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren

... much, Mr. Davis. I did suppose you intended some of the remarks in your last sermon should apply directly to myself and family; but of the first one, I had only one idea. As I have before said to you, the thought of a burning hell always makes me shudder. I never could conceive of such torture at the hand of a wise and loving God. If there is punishment awaiting the unrighteous, it is not of literal fire. I am well persuaded of this, for if it were a literal fire, a body would soon be consumed; hence, ...

— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... him that he understood it as well as I did, at all events; that I could not conceive why I should get into these difficulties, one after the other; but that I believed I was a crazy man on this one subject—matrimonial monomania; that when I had gone through with one of these scrapes, and had suffered the severe punishment that was almost certain to follow, the whole was like ...

— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott

... poor wretches import arms to defend themselves. Very well: very well, messieurs! But your Government allow the importation of guns for sport. Ha! and then, if one can find money, and an ingenious English firm to make rifle-barrels to fit into the sporting-gun stock can you conceive any greater fun than smuggling these barrels into the country? My dear fellow, it is glorious: we could have five hundred volunteers! But at the same time I say your work is more valuable to ...

— Sunrise • William Black

... width and half a mile deep, and from the dark abyss comes rolling up a cloud of sulphurous vapors. Monte Somma in the time of Strabo was a miniature; but this crater is on the top of a mountain four times the height of the Italian volcano. Imagination finds it difficult to conceive a spectacle of more fearful grandeur or such solemn magnificence. It well accords with Milton's picture of the bottomless pit. The united effect of the silence and solitude of the place, the great depth of the cavity, the ...

— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

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