1
a
: favorable opinion
especially
: excessive appreciation of one's own worth or virtue
… the landlord's conceit of his own superior knowledge … —
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
b(1)
: a result of mental activity : thought
(2)
: individual opinion
2
a
: a fanciful idea
b
: an elaborate or strained metaphor
The poem abounds in metaphysical conceits.
c
: use or presence of such conceits in poetry
d
: an organizing theme or concept
… found his conceit for the film early …—Peter Wilkinson
Peter Wilkinson… the historian's conceit that the past is forever prologue …—Leon V. Sigal
Leon V. Sigal3
: a fancy item or trifle
Conceits were fancy desserts, made either of sugar … or pastry.—Francie Owen
Francie Owen
conceited; conceiting; conceits
1
chiefly dialectal
: imagine
2
dialectal British
: to take a fancy to
3
obsolete
: conceive, understand
Synonyms
Examples of conceit in a Sentence
Noun
His conceit has earned him many enemies.
the conceit that the crowd at the outdoor rock concert was a vast sea of people waving to the beat of the music
Verb
after a huge meal like that, I cannot conceit eating another thing for the rest of the day
Recent Examples on the WebInkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2024
The elements that made Smile get under your skin are sacrificed in bloody spectacle and the relative simplicity of the conceit gets muddied as the movie pushes beyond the two-hour mark.
—David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Oct. 2024
The conceit of a therapist opening his doors late at night is a gateway to various after-hours stories.
—Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 15 Oct. 2024
The film’s central visual conceit imagines Reeve’s Superman, cast in concrete, floating through space, laced with digital effects depictions of what the spinal cord injury has done to his body.
—Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 11 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for conceit 
Noun
The conceit, pulled from Renée Knight’s 2015 novel of the same name, is at first pleasingly retrograde, then turns remarkably stupid.
—Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2024
The elements that made Smile get under your skin are sacrificed in bloody spectacle and the relative simplicity of the conceit gets muddied as the movie pushes beyond the two-hour mark.
—David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Oct. 2024
The conceit of a therapist opening his doors late at night is a gateway to various after-hours stories.
—Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 15 Oct. 2024
The film’s central visual conceit imagines Reeve’s Superman, cast in concrete, floating through space, laced with digital effects depictions of what the spinal cord injury has done to his body.
—Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 11 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for conceit
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'conceit.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near conceit
Cite this Entry
“Conceit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conceit. Accessed 2 Nov. 2024.
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