What does conceit mean?
Conceit most commonly means excessive pride in oneself — an inflated opinion of one's own abilities, appearance, or importance. It carries a strongly negative connotation: a person described as having conceit is seen as vain and arrogant rather than merely confident. The word has a second, entirely different life in literary criticism, where a conceit is an elaborate, extended metaphor that draws a surprising parallel between two very dissimilar things, as in John Donne's famous comparison of two separated lovers to the legs of a compass. In older English, conceit could also mean simply an idea or fanciful notion, a sense now largely obsolete. Derived forms include the adjective "conceited," meaning puffed up with pride. Both meanings trace back to the same Latin root as "conceive" and "concept," reflecting the word's origin in the act of grasping or forming an idea in the mind.
Excessive pride in oneself or one's abilities; vanity.
"Years of praise bred a conceit that no criticism could touch."
In literature, an elaborate and extended metaphor that yokes together two startlingly dissimilar things.
"The poem's central conceit likens the soul to a spider spinning its web."
(Archaic) A fanciful notion, idea, or opinion.
"He dismissed the rumor as mere conceit."
The plural is standard and regular. It is more commonly used in the literary sense (the conceits of metaphysical poetry) than in the sense of vanity, where the uncountable form predominates.
"Metaphysical poets delighted in ingenious conceits."
"Conceit" and "concept" come from the same Latin verb meaning "to take in" — but one became a brilliant idea and the other became a swollen head.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of conceit
Conceit derives from the Latin verb concipere, meaning "to take in or conceive," which entered English through Old French conceivre in the late Middle Ages. Originally it meant the act of conceiving an idea, and by the sixteenth century it could refer to the idea or notion itself. Over time the word narrowed: its sense of a clever or fanciful notion gave rise both to the modern literary term for an extended metaphor and to the negative sense of an over-favorable opinion of oneself, attested from around the sixteenth century onward.
Related word forms
How conceit is actually used
"Conceit" is almost always pejorative when it means vanity — calling someone full of conceit is a criticism. The literary sense is a neutral technical term common in discussions of metaphysical poetry. An archaic sense meaning simply "an idea or notion" survives mostly in older texts.
Easily confused with conceit
A concept is an abstract idea, while a conceit is either excessive self-regard or an elaborate literary metaphor.
Conception means the forming of an idea or the beginning of pregnancy, whereas conceit refers to vanity or a fanciful literary comparison.