CONCEPTION.
entry 6566
CONCE’PTION. n. s. [conceptio, Latin.]
1. The act of conceiving, or quickening with pregnancy.
I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception; in
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.
Gen. iii. 16.
Thy sorrow I will greatly multiply
By thy conception; children thou shalt bring
In sorrow forth.
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. x. l. 194.
2. The state of being conceived.
Joy had the like conception in our eyes,
And at that instant, like a babe, sprung up.
Shakespeare.
Our own productions flatter us: it is impossible not to be
fond of them at the moment of their conception.
Dryd. Dufresn.
3. Notion; idea; image in the mind.
As conceptions are the images or resemblances of things to
the mind within itself, in the like manner are words or names
the marks, tokens, or resemblances of those conceptions to the
minds of them whom we converse with.
South's Sermons.
Consult the acutest poets and speakers, and they will confess
that their quickest, most admired conceptions were such as darted
into their minds, like sudden flashes of lightning, they knew
not how, nor whence; and not by any certain consequence,
or dependence of one thought upon another, as it is in mat
ters of ratiocination.
South's Sermons.
To have right conceptions about them, we must bring our
understandings to the inflexible natures and unalterable rela
tions of things, and not endeavour to bring things to any pre
conceived notions of our own.
Locke.
4. Sentiments; purpose.
Thou but remember'st me of my own conception. I have
perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather
blamed as my own jealous curiosity, than as a very pretence
and purpose of unkindness.
Shakespeare's King Lear.
Please your highness, note
His dangerous conception in this point:
Not friended by his wish to your high person,
His will is most malignant, and it stretches
Beyond you to your friends.
Shakespeare's Henry VIII.
5. Apprehension; knowledge.
And as if beasts conceiv'd what reason were,
And that conception should distinctly show
They should the name of reasonable bear;
For, without reason, none could reason know.
Davies.
6. Conceit; sentiment; pointed thought.
He is too flatulent sometimes, and sometimes too dry;
many times unequal, and almost always forced; and, besides,
is full of conceptions, points of epigram, and witticisms; all
which are not only below the dignity of heroic verse, but
contrary to its nature.
Dryden's Juvenal, Dedication.