conceit

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an artistic device or effect

   the architect's brilliant conceit was to build the house around the tree

2. 2
   noun

   a witty or ingenious turn of phrase

   They could always come up with some inspired off-the-wall conceit.

3. 3
   noun

   Something conceived in the mind; an idea, a thought.

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

4. 4
   noun

   The faculty of conceiving ideas; mental faculty; apprehension.

   a man of quick conceit

5. 5
   noun

   Quickness of apprehension; active imagination; lively fancy.

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

6. 6
   noun

   Esteem, favourable opinion.

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

7. 7
   noun

   A novel or fanciful idea; a whim.

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

8. 8
   noun

   An ingenious expression or metaphorical idea, especially in extended form or used as a literary or rhetorical device.

   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.

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.