conceive / conceive of (2024)

Hi, I'm wondering if there's any difference between "conceive" and "conceive of". They really confused me...

For example, "She conceived [of?] a plan to expand her company's business." Is the "of" needed?

I'm not quite sure but I think "conceive of" is used more usually?

Thx

Greetings.

Since no-one else has had a go at explaining, here is my twopenny-worth.

"to conceive" a plan, an idea or a scheme, without "of", is perfectly fine as (at least British) English, and "to conceive of..." such a thing sounds to me a little odd, but is widely used.

You might like to try playing with synonymous expressions such as

"She thought up a plan...", "She devised a plan...", "She had an idea..." (this last would usually be followed by "...for expanding...").

The one thing that a lady cannot do, in the biological sense, is "conceive of" a child/baby, when she becomes pregnant.

I hope this is helpful.

To conceive a plan = to first think of it.

I think conceive of is usually used in the negative, to refer to things one would never dream of doing: I couldn't conceive of bathing topless myself.

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EDIT:

The way I'd explain it is like this:

As an intransitive verb, "to conceive" only has one meaning: to become pregnant. "After six months of trying, she finally conceived."

As a transitive verb without the 'of', the literal meaning is still related to pregnancy: "She conceived a child", "He was conceived on Christmas Eve 1998". It can also be used metaphorically - you can conceive a plan, conceive an idea - but the basic meaning is identical: you're bringing something new into existence.

To "conceive of" something has a different meaning. It means that you understand and accept the concept in your mind: you can imagine doing it. It's usually coupled with the verb 'can' - "I can conceive of this", "I can't conceive of that". (As the others have said, it's more often used in the negative). You can also conceive of something as something else, meaning that in your mind you see it as equivalent to the other thing.
The adjective "inconceivable" comes from this meaning of the word - something is 'inconceivable' if you can't ever imagine it happening.

So to use your examples:

I conceived this plan to distract them = Active: I came up with the plan for this reason.
I conceived of this plan as a way to distract them = Descriptive: My concept of the plan was as I describe.

Hello!

Thanks for your explanations. In the following case, is it correct to write as follows?

The project is conceived as a process, which at every step, builds on what has been accomplished before.

("Conceived" not "conceived of", right?)

Thanks!

PaulQ said:

Yes, you are correct. It is as Myridon says.

Click to expand...

Thanks Paul!

Hey there,

Just to confusing things some more:

The word "of" etymologically is the less emphatic version of "off"

There are some useful results if you imagine the word "off" in the places where you'd normally use the word "of"

"The peel of the orange" becomes "the peel off the orange"

"The day of the month" becomes "the day off the month"

"The man of my dreams" becomes "the man off my dreams"

What this shows me is that what ever precedes the word "of" is conceptually "a smaller piece" of the word that comes after "of"

NOW to relate this to this thread:

"To conceive a plan" is to give birth to a plan (as someone suggested above)

"To think of something" means the thinking happens off that something... your thoughts are a smaller piece of the something... that the something is making you think.

"To conceive of a plan" would seem, by this twisted logic, to mean that the plan somehow already existed in part and influenced you to think it?

Hahaha, sorry...

Dear all,

Thanks so much for this thread; it is really helpful.

Would the following phrase be correct?:
'people's participation was conceived of as the leading element in the process'

It intends to mean that people's participation was conceptualised or imagined as the leading element in the process.

Does the phrase sound generally correct?
Is 'of as' a problem?
Otherwise, which would be a good alternative?

Thanks indeed!

Dear all,

I am still confused about the difference between "conceive" and "conceive of".

Suppose I am writing a recommendation letter.

Mary was an inspiration to us during our university’s science and technology competition. She conceived (of) an instrument that could extract financial information for industry analyses. This inspired us to invent a crawler to mine data from a blog.

My intended meaning is she was the first person in our team who thought of an instrument that could extract financial information.

Is "of" needed here?

She conceived an instrument - She made or produced an instrument; She brought an instrument into being. The latter could fall just short of actual production of the instrument. In the given context this would be inappropriate as it is too close to "became pregnant with [and gave birth to]" - you would use one of the clearer verbs. To conceive (trans.) is probably best used with abstracts.

She conceived of an instrument -> She imagined - to form or have a image or idea of; to think of. This usually would not have any physical reality.

It is also worthwhile noting that "of an instrument" is an adverbial phrase, and overall is simply a much stronger version of "she thought of an instrument".

I think "conceived of" generally works best with ideas and hypothetical situations. An instrument is not an idea, it's a device. The device is based on an idea (or ideas).

She conceived (of) an instrument that could extract financial information for industry analyses. This inspired us to invent a crawler to mine data from a blog.

You didn't build her idea, you built a crawler based on her idea. So I would reword your sentence.

She conceived of a method for extracting financial information for industry analyses. This inspired us to invent a crawler (which was based on her conception/idea) to mine data from a blog.

Alternatively, if she just thought up the idea of the crawler and not how it worked I would just say that.

She conceived the idea of creating a tool for extracting financial information for industry analyses. This inspired us to invent a crawler to mine data from a blog.