conceptual

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin conceptuālis,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} recorded in 1648,^[2] from Latin conceptus (“a collecting, gathering, conceiving”),^[5][8][3] and the suffix -ālis;^[2][4] the noun comes from concipiō (“to take in, conceive”), whose past participle has the same form.^[5][6] In later use the English word was re-formed from English concept + -ual.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Probably "conceived in the mind": 1662, in John Chandler's translation of van Helmont's Oriatrike, an isolated and now obsolete use.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

After the isolated 17th-century use the word reappears in 1825 in the OED (1820 in Etymonline, about 1834 in Merriam-Webster) for "of or relating to mental concepts".^[2][5][4] Etymonline suggests that it arose to match the purely mental sense of conception, since it was hardly ever used of physical conceiving, for which conceptional appeared in 1832.^[5] From 1969 it also described art in which the idea counts for more than the finished object, conceptual art.^[2][7][4]

Timeline

• 1648 – Medieval Latin conceptualis, in a work translated into English in 1662.^[2]
• 1662 – conceived in the mind (isolated use).^[2][5]
• 1825 – of or relating to mental concepts.^[2]
• 1969 – of conceptual art.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Relating to or based on concepts or ideas; abstract: a conceptual framework for the study.^[9][4][2]
2. Concerned with the definitions of the concepts of a field and how they relate, rather than with the facts.^[9]
3. Relating to or being conceptual art.^[4][2]

Word family

• conceptually
• conceptuality
• conceptualism
• conceptualist
• conceptualize
• nonconceptual
• postconceptual
• conceptual art

Related words

• concept
• conceive
• conception

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins