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conceive

From Wiktionary
conceive is on the Academic Word List.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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Plain form
conceive

Third-person singular
conceives

Past tense
conceived

Past participle
conceived

Present participle
conceiving

  1. (transitive & intransitive) If you can conceive of a certain situation, you can imagine it.
    I just can't conceive of life without you.
    Can you conceive what life would have been like in that time?
  2. (intransitive) Someone conceives of an idea when they think of the idea for the first time, and it's their idea: they thought of it themselves, no one told them.
    The planners first conceived of the idea of making a large, curved building here in 1998.
    I can't conceive of any way of getting there before 5:00.
  3. (transitive) A woman conceives a baby when she becomes pregnant (starts to carry a tiny baby inside her).
    The baby was conceived the day we went to Niagara Falls.

Synonyms

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