conceit

1. (obsolete) Something conceived in the mind; an idea, a thought.Examples: "In laughing, there ever procedeth a conceit of somewhat ridiculous."; "a man wise in his own conceit"; "It was after a night like this that I shocked the community with a queer conceit about the burial of the rich and celebrated Squire Brewster […]"countableobsoleteuncountable

2. (obsolete) Opinion, (neutral) judgment.countableobsoleteuncountable

3. (now rare, dialectal) Esteem, favourable opinion.Examples: "By him that me boughte, than quod Dysdayne, / I wonder sore he is in suche cenceyte."; "[G]ive him thy thanks for putting her into conceit with the sex that thou hast given her so much reason to execrate."archaiccountabledialectaluncountable

4. (countable) A novel or fanciful idea; a whim.Examples: "On his way to the gibbet, a freak took him in the head to go off with a conceit."; "Some to conceit alone their works confine, / And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line."; "Tasso[…] is full of conceits […] which are not only below the dignity of heroic verse but contrary to its nature."countable

5. (countable, rhetoric, literature) An ingenious expression or metaphorical idea, especially in extended form or used as a literary or rhetorical device.Examples: "The “cyberspace” conceit allows him to dramatize computer hacking in nontechnical language, although I wonder how much his somewhat florid descriptions of the “bodiless exultation of cyberspace” will mean to readers who have not experienced the illusion of power that punching the keyboard of even a dinky little word-processor can give."; "In the next and final stanza, Donne expands the conceit of world exploration to present us with a further distinction between the spirituality of the lovers and the “map reader” and “sea-discoverers.”"; "Jones and Palin wrote and starred in The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) for LWT. Its conceit was to relate historical incidents as if TV had existed at the time."countablerhetoric

6. (uncountable) Overly high self-esteem; vain pride; hubris.Examples: "Plum'd with conceit he calls aloud."uncountable