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conception

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ḱe?
Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm
Proto-Italic *kom
Proto-Italic *kom-
Latin con-
substratebor.?
Proto-Indo-European *kap-
Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
Proto-Indo-European *kapyéti
Proto-Italic *kapjō
Old Latin kapiō
Latin capiō
▲
Ancient Greek σῠλλᾰμβᾰ́νω (sŭllămbắnō)calq.
Latin concipiō
Proto-Indo-European *-tis
Proto-Indo-European *-Hō
Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō
Proto-Italic *-tiō
Latin -tiō
Latin conceptiōlbor.
Old French conceptionbor.
Middle English concepcioun
English conception

    From Middle English concepcioun, borrowed from Old French conception, from Latin conceptiō (“a comprehending, a collection, composition, an expression, also a becoming pregnant”), from concipiō, past participle conceptus (“conceive”); see conceive. Equivalent to conceive +‎ -tion.

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    conception (countable and uncountable, plural conceptions)

    2. The act of conceiving.
    4. The state of being conceived; the beginning.
    6. The fertilization of an ovum by a sperm to form a zygote.
      • c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vi:
        Some powers diuine, or els infernall, mixt
        Their angry ſeedes at his conception:
        For he was neuer ſprong of humaine race,
        Since with the ſpirit of his fearefull pride,
        He dares so doubtleſly reſolue of rule.
    8. The start of pregnancy.
    10. The formation of a conceptus or an implanted embryo.
    12. The power or faculty of apprehending of forming an idea in the mind; the power of recalling a past sensation or perception; the ability to form mental abstractions.
      • c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 1:
        What the school books say about the united efforts of the two great Rossums is all a fairy tale. They used to have dreadful rows. The old atheist hadn't the slightest conception of industrial matters, and the end of it was that young Rossum shut him up in some laboratory or other and let him fritter the time away with his monstrosities, while he himself started on the business from an engineer's point of view.
    14. An image, idea, or notion formed in the mind; a concept, plan or design.
      • 1914 February 28, Henry Woodhouse, “Girdling the Globe by Motor-Driven Aircraft”, in Collier's‎[1], volume 52, number 24, page 13:
        "Around the World in Eighty Days" once had so much appeal to the imagination that Jules Verne wrote a novel about it. The latest proposal is to girdle the globe in three months in a flying machine. The practicability of such a flight is here discussed by an expert. Mr. Woodhouse is a member of the Aero Club of America and managing editor of "Flying". ¶ When the Aero Club of America received the news that the Panama-Pacific International Exposition had decided to offer $300,000 in prize money for a ninety-day aircraft race around the world, no one connected with aeronautics laughed at the conception or called it the dream of a Verne or a Wells. A map of the course indicates that to circumaviate the globe will mean flights over mountains and deserts, through storms, and across seas. But formidable obstacles in all of these classifications have been surmounted before by airmen, and, of course, can be surmounted again.
      • 1962 October, Brian Haresnape, “Focus on B.R. passenger stations”, in Modern Railways, pages 250–251:
        Elegant brick and stone buildings, with iron and glass canopies and decorative wooden scalloping and fencing—all evidencing care on the part of the architect to produce a pleasing, well-planned building—were submerged beneath a profusion of ill-conceived additions and camouflaged by vulgar paint schemes; and the original conception was lost.
    15. Something conceived or designed.
      • 1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC:
        The figure was placed on a low pedestal, sufficiently raised from the carpet on four plain wooden legs for all the space underneath to be clearly visible. The body was a squat, cross-legged conception, typical of an Indian deity […]

    Antonyms

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    Coordinate terms

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    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    See also

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    References

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    Anagrams

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    French

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    Etymology

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    Inherited from Old French conception, concepcion, borrowed from Latin conceptiōnem (“comprehension, understanding”).

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    conception f (plural conceptions)

    1. conception (of a child)
    2. conception (beginning, start)
    3. ability to understand
    4. viewpoint; angle
    5. concept, idea
      • 1903, Maurice Pillard Verneuil, Étude de la plante‎[2], page 1:
        C'est aussi que, se préoccupant des métiers qui devaient mettre en œuvre leurs conceptions décoratives, ils composaient leurs motifs en vue d'une exécution facile et rationnelle.
        It is also the case that, being mindful of the crafts responsible for realizing their decorative designs, they composed their motifs with a view to easy and rational execution.

    Derived terms

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    Descendants

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    • → Dutch: conceptie
    • → Romanian: concepție

    Further reading

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    Old French

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    Alternative forms

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    Etymology

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      Borrowed from Latin conceptio, conceptionem (“comprehension, understanding”).

      Noun

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      conception oblique singular, f (oblique plural conceptions, nominative singular conception, nominative plural conceptions)

      1. conception (of a child)
        • 1377, Bernard de Gordon, Fleur de lis de medecine (a.k.a. lilium medicine):
          Et sont retenus naturellement comme en concepcion
          And they [menses] are naturally retained in the case of conception

      Descendants

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