conceive
/kənˈsiːv/
conceive verb: to have a child; to become pregnant (with).
Verb
conceive (third-person singular simple present conceives, present participle conceiving, simple past and past participle conceived)
- To have a child; to become pregnant (with).
- Assisted procreation can help those trying to conceive.
- She hath also conceived a son in her old age.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:36
- To develop; to form in the mind; to imagine.
- 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.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
- 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.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
- To imagine (as); to have a conception of; to form a representation of.
- Can you conceive of him as a leader?
- We shall, / As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount / Before you, Lepidus.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
- To understand (someone).
- I conceive you.1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 3, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC
conceive meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
conceive in Hindi
- to conceive, imagine, understand
- भाँपना bhā̃pnā
conceive in Tamil
- கருக்கொள், கருது, சூலுறு, கருப்பந் தரித்தல், கருவுறல், சினைபடல்
conceive in Urdu
- حاملہ ٹھہرنا, سوچنا
conceive in Bengali
- কল্পনা করা, গর্ভবতী হওয়া
More languagesFewer languages
- conceive in Telugu
- గర్భముధరించు garbhamudhariñcu
- conceive in Malayalam
- ഗർഭംധരിക്കുക, സങ്കല്പിക്കുക, ഊഹിക്കുക, ഗ്രഹിക്കുക
- conceive in Kannada
- ನೆನೆಸು, ಬಸಿರು ನಿಲ್ಲು, ಬಸಿರಾಗು, ಭಾವಿಸು
- conceive in Punjabi
- ਗਰਭਧਾਰਣ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
- conceive in Gujarati
- ગર્ભધારણ કરવું
- conceive in Sanskrit
- ऊह् ūh, आधा ādhā, आदधाति ā́dadhāti, धरति dhárati
- conceive in Nepali
- गर्भ धारण गर्ने
- conceive in Tagalog
- maglihi
- conceive in Arabic
- حَبِلَ ḥabila, خَرَجَ بِ ḵaraja bi
Examples of conceive in a sentence
- 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—...1890, Thomas Tyler, Shakespeare's Sonnets, D. Nutt, page 81:
- […]you will hardly conceive him to have been bred in the ſame Climate […]1731 (date written), Simon Wagstaff [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], “An Introduction to the Following Treatise”, in A Complete Collection of...
- Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter III, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
- You can as easily conceive him a free man as he can conceive you a slave.2008 [c. 65 CE], Seneca the Younger, “Letter on Slaves”, in Andrew Bailey et al., editors, The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political...
Forms of conceive
| third-person singular present | conceives |
|---|---|
| present participle | conceiving |
| past participle | conceived |
| past | conceived |
| alternative misspelling | concieve |
| alternative form (obsolete) | conceave |
Origin of conceive
From Middle English conceyven, from Old French concevoir, conceveir, from Latin concipiō, concipere (“to devise, to conceive”).
Words formed from conceive
Words that rhyme with conceive
45 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- eve
- grieve
- Kharkiv
- breve
- naive
- neve
- Pishchiv
- weave
- keeve
- Neave
- Piskiv
- reeve
- screeve
- skeeve
- aggrieve
- beleave
- French leave
- greave
- interweave
- perceive
- reave
- seave
- sheave
- shrieve
- sleave
- steeve
- steve
- take French leave
- Abib
- beeve
- deceive
- dreve
- Dutch leave
- eave
- gneeve
- khedive
- nieve
- peeve
- preconceive
- rebelieve
- reperceive
- thieve
- transceive
- we've
- Yves
Questions about conceive
- What does conceive mean?
- Conceive means to have a child; to become pregnant (with).
- What is conceive in Hindi?
- Conceive in Hindi is भाँपना (bhā̃pnā). See Conceive meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use conceive in a sentence?
- 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—...
- What part of speech is conceive?
- Conceive is a verb.
- How do you pronounce conceive?
- Conceive is pronounced /kənˈsiːv/.
- What is the past tense of conceive?
- The past tense of conceive is conceived.
Words near conceive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: conceive (page history and authors); भाँपना (Hindi) (page history and authors); conceive (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); conceive (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); conceive (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); గర్భముధరించు (Telugu) (page history and authors); conceive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); conceive (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); conceive (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); conceive (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); आदधाति (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); conceive (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-conceive.ogg.
Cite this entry: “conceive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/conceive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.