conceive
Americanverb (used with object)
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conceives,
present (3rd person singular)
-
conceived,
past participle, past
-
conceiving
present participle
-
to form (a notion, opinion, purpose, etc.).
He conceived the project while he was on vacation.
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to form a notion or idea of; imagine.
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to hold as an opinion; think; believe.
I can't conceive that it would be of any use.
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to experience or form (a feeling).
to conceive a great love for music.
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to express, as in words.
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to become pregnant with.
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to beget.
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to begin, originate, or found (something) in a particular way (usually used in the passive).
a new nation conceived in liberty.
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Archaic. to understand; comprehend.
verb (used without object)
-
conceives,
present (3rd person singular)
-
conceived,
past participle, past
-
conceiving
present participle
-
to form an idea; think (usually followed byof ).
-
to become pregnant.
verb
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to have an idea (of); imagine; think
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(tr; takes a clause as object or an infinitive) to hold as an opinion; believe
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(tr) to develop or form, esp in the mind
she conceived a passion for music
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to become pregnant with (young)
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rare (tr) to express in words
Synonym Usage
See imagine.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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conceivesimple
-
conceivessimple
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have conceivedperfect
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has conceivedperfect
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am conceivingprogressive
-
are conceivingprogressive
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is conceivingprogressive
-
have been conceivingperfect progressive
-
has been conceivingperfect progressive
Past
-
conceivedsimple
-
had conceivedperfect
-
was conceivingprogressive
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were conceivingprogressive
-
had been conceivingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of conceive
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English from Anglo-French, Old French conceivre, from Latin concipere “to take fully, take in,” equivalent to con- con- + -cipere, combining form of capere “to take”
Explanation
To conceive is to come up with an idea. If you conceive a plan for your little brother's birthday, you dream up the perfect party, complete with a magician, rented ponies, and a cake shaped like a rocket. Latin roots for conceive (by way of French) point to "take into" either "the womb" or "the mind." An idea is sometimes called "a seed" or "the seed of an idea," and conceive means to produce something from inside the mind — or to become pregnant. Another expression is "pregnant with ideas" or "pregnant with possibilities," and someone who can "conceive of a thousand ways" to solve a problem or design something is full of new ideas.
Vocabulary lists containing conceive
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" (1863)
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"The Tell-Tale Heart," Vocabulary from the short story
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The couple often used Xuan’s sperm and a donor egg to conceive the children, documents reviewed by the Journal showed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
That meant LGBTQ+ and single people who historically had been shut out by definitions of infertility as a failure to conceive after six to 12 months of unprotected heterosexual intercourse.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026
Some may find a partner and conceive on their own; some may decide they no longer want children; and others may choose another path to parenthood, such as adoption.
From Slate ● Aug. 29, 2026
"We had hoped we'd conceive naturally, but we'd started trying long before our wedding and it wasn't happening," she says.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
True reasoning convinced me that I should wholly subtract all remnants of every kind of form if I wished to conceive the absolutely formless.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
Clearly Ms. Footer conceives of Bradley as something of a tortured Romantic; what’s unclear—in fact, what is unknowable—is whether Bradley did himself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
Turk conceives her character as a collection of insecurities and hesitant expressions, making Dalia the perfect candidate to be metaphorically reborn through an unlikely forest adventure in which magical events will occur.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 14, 2025
Perhaps the big divide here isn’t about what one wants one’s family to look like, but in how one conceives of parenthood in the first place.
From Slate ● Sep. 13, 2025
Egypt, along with other Arab states, remains committed to the long-time international formula for peace, the two-state solution which conceives an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2025
He conceives the essential unity of Whitman's thought, a unity that should be obvious but evidently is not to some readers and critics who treat Whitman as a collection of more or less impressive fragments.
From The Critical Game by John Albert Macy
But the college faced challenges that slowed the project after it was initially conceived in 2018.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026
Each element beyond the central character study, which is itself only shallowly conceived, ends up another superfluity in a storm of them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
It was here he conceived the idea of sending a lander, named Beagle 2 by his wife, to Mars, where it could study the red planet directly for signs of life.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Halzen, who grew up in Belgium, paid rich tribute to the roughly 450 people across more than a dozen countries who have helped turn an idea he conceived in the late 1980s into reality.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
“A baby is no worse for being conceived in an encounter.”
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
She has since had a daughter after conceiving naturally but says she has no regrets about freezing her eggs, which remain available for her to use in the future.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Brooklyn resident Jenna Edwards always assumed she and her husband would have children, but they had trouble conceiving.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
With “Resurrection,” Bi delivers something uncommonly rich, boldly conceiving his latest as a salute to the history of film.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025
In total, only 12% of people cited infertility - or difficulty conceiving - as a reason for not having the number of children they wanted to.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2025
Because he had no topographic map, however, he had no way of conceiving that salvation was so close at hand.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
