Category:Conception

Con*cep"tion, n. Etym: [F. conception, L. conceptio, fr. concipere to conceive. See Conceive.]

1. The act of conceiving in the womb; the initiation of an embryonic animal life. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. Gen. iii. 16.

2. The state of being conceived; beginning. Joy had the like conception in our eyes. Shak.

3. The power or faculty of apprehending of forming an idea in the mind; the power of recalling a past sensation or perception. Under the article of conception, I shall confine myself to that faculty whose province it is to enable us to form a notion of our past sensations, or of the objects of sense that we have formerly perceived. Stewart.

4. The formation in the mind of an image, idea, or notion, apprehension. Conception consists in a conscious act of the understanding, bringing any given object or impression into the same class with any number of other objects or impression, by means of some character or characters common to them all. Coleridge.

5. The image, idea, or notion of any action or thing which is formed in the mind; a concept; a notion; a universal; the product of a rational belief or judgment. See Concept. He [Herodotus] says that the sun draws or attracts the water; a metaphorical term obviously intended to denote some more general and abstract conception than that of the visible operation which the word primarily signifies. Whewell.

6. Idea; purpose; design. Note this dangerous conception. Shak.

7. Conceit; affected sentiment or thought. [Obs.] He. . . is full of conceptions, points of epigram, and witticism. Dryden.

Syn. -- Idea; notion; perception; apprehemsion; comprehension.