a. [ad. L. conceptīv-us, f. concept-: see above and -IVE. Cf. mod. F. conceptif, -ive.] Having the faculty or attribute of conceiving.
1. Conceiving (in the womb), apt to conceive; also transf. (rare.)
1643. R. O., Man’s Mort., iii. 14. By her powers Formative or conceptive.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VII. vii. 352. Where the uterine parts exceed in heat, by the coldnesse hereof they may bee reduced into a conceptive constitution.
1868. Bailey, Festus. The … sun hath sown The soil conceptive with the seed of gold.
2. Conceiving (in the mind); of or pertaining to (mental) conception.
1640. Hobbes, Hum. Nat., i. § 7. Of the powers of the mind there be two sorts, cognitive, imaginative or conceptive and motive.
1678. Norris, Coll. Misc. (1699), 164. That celebrated distinction of the Platonic School of the Divine Mind into … conceptive and Exhibitive.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, V. xxii. (1737), 100. Their conceptive, cogitative Faculties.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 126. With a conceptive imagination vigorous beyond any in his generation.
† 3. As a rendering of L. conceptīvus, applied to certain festivals celebrated annually, not on fixed days, but on days appointed by the priests or magistrates. Obs. rare.
1631. R. Byfield, Doctr. Sabb., 81. Macrobius saith, there are foure kindes of publike holy-dayes … Stative, Conceptive, Imperative, and nundinative.
Hence Conceptiveness, conceptive faculty.
1819. P. Morris, in Blackw. Mag., VI. 312. Wit … belongs to a different class from conceptiveness, and is an intellectual power.
