All 22 Uses of
conceive
in
War and Peace
- On the contrary he gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly—like an arrow piercing the earth—to remain fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars.†
Chpt 8inconceivable = totally unlikely or impossible to understandstandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in inconceivable means not and reverses the meaning of conceivable. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only he could attain it, it would be the end of all things.†
Chpt 15 *
- Met by this difficulty historians of that class devise some most obscure, impalpable, and general abstraction which can cover all conceivable occurrences, and declare this abstraction to be the aim of humanity's movement.†
Chpt 15
- But as the moral activity is inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in the one nor in the other but in the union of the two.†
Chpt 15inconceivable = totally unlikely or impossible to understandstandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in inconceivable means not and reverses the meaning of conceivable. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we cannot say why this occurs, and we say that it is so because it is inconceivable otherwise, because it must be so and that it is a law.†
Chpt 15
- Apart from consciousness of self no observation or application of reason is conceivable.†
Chpt 15
- If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent source of self-consciousness it would be subject to reasoning and to experience, but in fact such subjection does not exist and is inconceivable.†
Chpt 15inconceivable = totally unlikely or impossible to understandstandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in inconceivable means not and reverses the meaning of conceivable. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the expression of will in any action, our own or another's, the first demand of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without a cause no phenomenon is conceivable.†
Chpt 15
- Admit that more irritating news than yours could not have been conceived.†
Chpt 2 *
- But still, to conceive a future life...†
Chpt 2
- He could not conceive that a stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right rather than to the left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly appreciated and newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of unknown and undefined misery.†
Chpt 4
- didst thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful, eternal, and infinite in all His attributes?†
Chpt 5
- They had not as many visitors as before, but the old habits of life without which the count and countess could not conceive of existence remained unchanged.†
Chpt 7
- She could not write, because she could not conceive the possibility of expressing sincerely in a letter even a thousandth part of what she expressed by voice, smile, and glance.†
Chpt 7
- That Prince Andrew's deeply loved affianced wife—the same Natasha Rostova who used to be so charming—should give up Bolkonski for that fool Anatole who was already secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive and could not imagine.†
Chpt 8
- Every man can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible only for God.†
Chpt 11
- The man who does not understand the construction of the machine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which revolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine, and not the shaving which merely harms and hinders the working.†
Chpt 13
- The countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natasha or Sonya, or for Nicholas himself.†
Chpt 15
- It is possible to understand that Napoleon had power and so events occurred; with some effort one may even conceive that Napoleon together with other influences was the cause of an event; but how a book, Le Contrat social, had the effect of making Frenchmen begin to drown one another cannot be understood without an explanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event.†
Chpt 15
- A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of life.†
Chpt 15
- In neither case—however we may change our point of view, however plain we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of the action may be—can we ever conceive either complete freedom or complete necessity.†
Chpt 15
- To conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space, which is evidently impossible.†
Chpt 15
Definitions:
-
(1)
(conceive as in: conceive the idea) to originate, understand, or imagine
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(2)
(conceive as in: conceived their first child) become pregnant or fertilize an egg