conceit
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: literature
media
publishing
Etymology: From Middle English conceyte, formed from conceyven by analogy with pairs such as (Modern English) deceive~deceit, receive~receipt etc. Doublet of concept and concetto. Akin to Portuguese conceito.
Inflected forms:
form: conceits
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: conceipt
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: Something conceived in the mind; an idea, a thought.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
examples: In laughing, there ever procedeth a conceit of somewhat ridiculous.
a man wise in his own conceit
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 […]
gloss: The faculty of conceiving ideas; mental faculty; apprehension.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: a man of quick conceit
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.
gloss: Quickness of apprehension; active imagination; lively fancy.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: His wit's as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there is no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.
gloss: Opinion, (neutral) judgment.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
gloss: Esteem, favourable opinion.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
dialectal
uncountable
examples: By him that me boughte, than quod Dysdayne, / I wonder sore he is in suche cenceyte.
[G]ive him thy thanks for putting her into conceit with the sex that thou hast given her so much reason to execrate.
gloss: A novel or fanciful idea; a whim.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: On his way to the gibbet, a freak took him in the head to go off with a conceit.
Some to conceit alone their works confine, / And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line.
Tasso[…] is full of conceits […] which are not only below the dignity of heroic verse but contrary to its nature.
By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.
The book's main conceit is to make poetry from univocal words (words containing just one vowel) […]
gloss: An ingenious expression or metaphorical idea, especially in extended form or used as a literary or rhetorical device.
pos: noun
tags: countable
rhetoric
examples: The “cyberspace” conceit allows him to dramatize computer hacking in nontechnical language, although I wonder how much his somewhat florid descriptions of the “bodiless exultation of cyberspace” will mean to readers who have not experienced the illusion of power that punching the keyboard of even a dinky little word-processor can give.
In the next and final stanza, Donne expands the conceit of world exploration to present us with a further distinction between the spirituality of the lovers and the “map reader” and “sea-discoverers.”
Jones and Palin wrote and starred in The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) for LWT. Its conceit was to relate historical incidents as if TV had existed at the time.
gloss: Overly high self-esteem; vain pride; hubris.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: Plum'd with conceit he calls aloud.
gloss: Design; pattern.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: And yet I know not how conceit may rob the treasury of life when life itself yields to the theft;
Derived words: conceited
conceitedly
conceitedness
conceitful
conceitless
misconceit
out of conceit with
preconceit
self-conceit
unconceit
Translations:
lang: Armenian
word: ինքնահավանություն
roman: inkʻnahavanutʻyun
lang: Bulgarian
word: самонаде́яност
roman: samonadéjanost
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 自負 /自负
roman: zìfù
lang: Czech
word: namyšlenost
lang: Czech
word: nafoukanost
lang: Czech
word: domýšlivost
lang: Czech
word: ješitnost
lang: Dutch
word: verwaandheid
lang: Dutch
word: ijdelheid
lang: Dutch
word: hoogmoed
lang: Finnish
word: omahyväisyys
lang: Finnish
word: itserakkaus
lang: French
word: vanité
lang: French
word: orgueil
lang: German
word: Einbildung
lang: German
word: Dünkel
lang: German
word: Eigendünkel
lang: German
word: Arroganz
lang: German
word: Eingebildetheit
lang: German
word: Süffisanz
lang: German
word: Selbstgefälligkeit
lang: German
word: Krattel
lang: Greek
word: ματαιοδοξία
roman: mataiodoxía
lang: Ancient Greek
word: φύσημα
roman: phúsēma
lang: Hebrew
word: התנפחות
roman: hitnapkhût
lang: Hungarian
word: beképzeltség
lang: Hungarian
word: önhittség
lang: Hungarian
word: önteltség
lang: Hungarian
word: önelégültség
lang: Irish
word: ainionadh
lang: Irish
word: anbharúil
lang: Irish
word: postúlacht
lang: Irish
word: consaeit
lang: Italian
word: presunzione
lang: Italian
word: vanità
lang: Japanese
word: うぬぼれ
roman: unubore
lang: Japanese
word: 自惚れ
roman: unubore
lang: Latvian
word: iedomība
lang: Latvian
word: uzpūtība
lang: Latvian
word: uzpūtīgums
lang: Māori
word: whakahīhī
lang: Portuguese
word: presunção
lang: Portuguese
word: vaidade
lang: Romanian
word: trufie
lang: Romanian
word: vanitate
lang: Russian
word: самомне́ние
roman: samomnénije
lang: Russian
word: тщесла́вие
roman: tščeslávije
lang: Russian
word: го́нор
roman: gónor
lang: Russian
word: чва́нство
roman: čvánstvo
lang: Russian
word: самонаде́янность
roman: samonadéjannostʹ
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: у̀мишљено̄ст
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: ùmišljenōst
lang: Spanish
word: engreimiento
lang: Spanish
word: vanidad
lang: Spanish
word: presunción
lang: Spanish
word: ego
lang: Swahili
word: kiburi
lang: Swedish
word: fåfänga
lang: Tocharian B
word: śāmpa
lang: Ottoman Turkish
word: غرور
roman: gurur
lang: Ottoman Turkish
word: كبر
roman: kibr, kibir
lang: Ottoman Turkish
word: طور
roman: tavr, tavır
lang: Vietnamese
word: ngã mạn