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Conceive vs Invent - What's the difference?

conceive | invent |

As verbs the difference between conceive and invent

is that conceive is to develop an idea; to form in the mind; to plan; to devise; to originate while invent is to design a new process or mechanism.

conceive

English

Alternative forms

* (obsolete)

Verb

(conceiv)
  • To develop an idea; to form in the mind; to plan; to devise; to originate.
  • * 1606 , , Shakespeare, II-4
  • We shall, / As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount / Before you, Lepidus.
  • * Gibbon
  • It was among the ruins of the Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twenty years of my life.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=3 , passage=Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.}}
  • To understand (someone).
  • * Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • I conceive you.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • You will hardly conceive him to have been bred in the same climate.
  • (senseid)(intransitive, or, transitive) To become pregnant.
  • * Bible, Luke i. 36
  • She hath also conceived a son in her old age.

    invent

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To design a new process or mechanism.
  • After weeks of hard work, I invented a new way to alphabetize matchbooks.
  • To create something fictional for a particular purpose.
  • I knew I had to invent an excuse, and quickly.
    We need a name to put in this form, so let's just invent one.
  • (obsolete) To come upon; to find; to find out; to discover.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.vi:
  • Far off he wonders, what them makes so glad, / If Bacchus merry fruit they did inuent [...].

    Synonyms

    * fangle * discover