All 14 Uses of
conceive
in
A Prayer for Owen Meany
- A keeper of swimsuit calendars could conceivably be happy, or borderline-happy, but the boys who had cut out the pictures of the lingerie and girdle models from the Sears catalog were at least partially unhappy—and there was no saving anyone who harbored pictures of thoroughly naked women.†
p. 160.9conceivably = believable or understandable
- Noah had started at the academy that fall, so he'd watched television with Owen and me on occasional weekends; but no judgment on the culture around us could ever be complete without Simon's automatic approval of every conceivable form of entertainment, and Hester's similarly automatic disapproval.†
p. 272.3
- As for Owen's idea that Hester would go to the extreme of marrying her own cousin, if that could provide Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred with an educational wallop ...it was inconceivable to me!†
p. 281.6inconceivable = 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.
- That would not be necessary, Dan Needham was sure; but that Owen was supported by such a boob as Mr. Early was conceivably worse than no defense at all.†
p. 301.0 *conceivably = believable or understandable
- Dominating the apartment, from the center stage of the living room—big and black and perfectly polished, and conceivably worth twice the annual rent on Mr. McSwiney's place of business—was the piano.†
p. 358.6
- And now we have to hear a civics lecture—the country's elected officials are instructing a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps on the subject that love of country and love of God (and hatred of communism) can conceivably be represented, in a democracy, by differing points of view.†
p. 389.1
- Hurd conceived of an academy whereat "no vicious lad, who is liable to contaminate his associates, is allowed to remain an hour"; whereat "the student shall bear the laboring oar"—and learn heartily from his labor!†
p. 29.8
- As abruptly as they had conceived of this game, my cousins announced that the game was over.†
p. 61.9
- The first time he took the armadillo home with him, he brought a box stuffed with cotton—it was such an elaborately conceived and strongly built carrying case that the armadillo could have been mailed safely overseas in it.†
p. 66.1
- He was the guy who created the Youth International Party, the "Yippies"; he was very active in antiwar protests, while at the same time he conceived of a meaningful revolution as roughly anything that conveyed irreverence with comedy and vulgarity "WHO DOES THIS JERK THINK HE'S HELPING?"†
p. 96.4
- Lust, he would later say, was God's way of helping me identify who my father was; in lust had I been conceived, in lust would I discover my father.†
p. 258.1
- Hester would expand her own horizons in directions conceived to educate her parents regarding the errors of their ways.†
p. 281.4
- "She just conceived a child—like the Christ Child," said Mr. Meany.†
p. 545.6
- When I met the Missus, when she ...conceived Owen ...there wasn't no Catholic in Concord we could even talk to!†
p. 546.4 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(conceive as in: conceive the idea) to originate, understand, or imagine
-
(2)
(conceive as in: conceived their first child) become pregnant or fertilize an egg