conceit

• conceipt (obsolete)

Formed from conceive by analogy with deceive/deceit, receive/receipt etc.

• IPA^(key): /kənˈsiːt/
• Rhymes: -iːt

conceit (countable and uncountable, plural conceits)

1. (obsolete) Something conceived in the mind; an idea, a thought. [14th–18th c.]
   • (Can we date this quote by Francis Bacon?)

     In laughing, there ever procedeth a conceit of somewhat ridiculous.

   • 1611, King James Version, Proverbs xxvi. 12

     a man wise in his own conceit

   • 1922, H. P. Lovecraft, “The Tomb”, in The Vagrant:

     It was after a night like this that I shocked the community with a queer conceit about the burial of the rich and celebrated Squire Brewster […]

2. The faculty of conceiving ideas; mental faculty; apprehension.

   a man of quick conceit

   • (Can we date this quote by Sir Philip Sidney?)

     How often, alas! did her eyes say unto me that they loved! and yet I, not looking for such a matter, had not my conceit open to understand them.

3. Quickness of apprehension; active imagination; lively fancy.
   • c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene iv]:

     His wit's as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there is no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.

4. (obsolete) Opinion, (neutral) judgment. [14th–18th c.]
5. (now rare, dialectal) Esteem, favourable opinion. [from 15th c.]
   • 1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Courte:

     By him that me boughte, than quod Dysdayne, / I wonder sore he is in suche cenceyte.

6. (countable) A novel or fanciful idea; a whim. [from 16th c.]
   • (Can we date this quote by L'Estrange?)

     On his way to the gibbet, a freak took him in the head to go off with a conceit.

   • (Can we date this quote by Alexander Pope?)

     Some to conceit alone their works confine, / And glittering thoughts struck out at every line.

   • (Can we date this quote by Dryden?)

     Tasso is full of conceits […] which are not only below the dignity of heroic verse but contrary to its nature.

   • 2012, Lauren Elkin, ‎Scott Esposito, The End of Oulipo?: An attempt to exhaust a movement

     The book's main conceit is to make poetry from univocal words (words containing just one vowel) […]

7. (countable, rhetoric, literature) An ingenious expression or metaphorical idea, especially in extended form or used as a literary or rhetorical device. [from 16th c.]
8. (uncountable) Overly high self-esteem; vain pride; hubris. [from 17th c.]
   • (Can we date this quote by Cotton?)

     Plumed with conceit he calls aloud.

9. Design; pattern.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene vi]:

     And yet I know not how conceit may rob the treasury of life when life itself yields to the theft;

conceit (third-person singular simple present conceits, present participle conceiting, simple past and past participle conceited)

1. (obsolete) To form an idea; to think.
   • 1643: John Milton, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

     Those whose […] vulgar apprehensions conceit but low of matrimonial purposes.

2. (obsolete, transitive) To conceive.
   • (Can we date this quote by South?)

     The strong, by conceiting themselves weak, are therebly rendered as inactive […] as if they really were so.

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:

   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.23:

     That owls and ravens are ominous appearers, and presignifying unlucky events, as Christians yet conceit, was also an augurial conception.

• conceit in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• conceit in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• conceit at OneLook Dictionary Search