concevoir

Inherited from Old French concevoir, from Vulgar Latin *concipēre, from Latin concipere.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.sə.vwaʁ/

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• Rhymes: -waʁ

concevoir

1. to conceive:
   1. to conceive (an idea)
      • 1868, Jean Déhès, Essai sur l’amélioration des races chevalines de la France, École impériale vétérinaire de Toulouse:

        Ne regardons donc plus comme des principes absolus des faits n’ayant jamais existé que dans l’imagination de ceux qui les ont conçus […]

        Let us therefore no longer consider as absolute principles facts which have never existed, save in the imagination of those who conceived them […]

      • 2006, Tom Wolfe, Moi, Charlotte Simmons, Robert Laffont:

        Il a essayé de concevoir combien des six mille deux cents étudiants de Dupont étaient à ce moment en train de forniquer. Concevoir, au sens d’être doué d’un regard qui traverserait les murs pour découvrir toutes ces bêtes à deux dos occupées à se tortiller et à ruer et à y aller.

        He tried to conceive of how many of the six thousand and two hundred students at Dupont were in the process of fornicating this very moment. Conceive, in the sense of being gifted with a sight that would go through the walls to discover all those beasts with two backs busy wriggling and bucking and going at it.

   2. to conceive, to conceive of; to understand, to comprehend
      • 1894, Anatole France, Le Lys rouge:

        Ma chère amie, je ne vous conçois pas. Vous êtes d’une inconséquence qui peut vous faire le plus grand tort.

        My dear friend, I don't understand you. You are being thoughtless in a way that might do you the greatest harm.

   3. (dated) to conceive (a baby)
2. to design

   concevoir les plans d’un immeuble ― to design the plans for a building

• “concevoir”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• conceivre
• conçoivre

From Vulgar Latin *concipēre, variant form of Classical Latin concipere, present active infinitive of concipiō.

• IPA^(key): /kunt͡səˈvoi̯ɾ/

concevoir

1. to conceive (an idea)
2. to conceive (a baby)

This verb conjugates as a third-group verb. This verb has a stressed present stem conçoiv distinct from the unstressed stem concev, as well as other irregularities. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

• → English: conceive
• French: concevoir

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (concevoir, supplement)
• conceivre on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub