conceit

Conceit is a term with two broad senses in English. In literary usage, it refers to an extended, elaborate, or striking metaphor that governs a passage or an entire work. The word comes from Latin conceptus, meaning something conceived, and entered English in the early modern period to describe a relationship of ideas that is unusually inventive or far-fetched.

In poetry and rhetoric, a conceit often pairs an unlikely or surprising comparison with sustained argument or imagery. A subcategory is the metaphysical conceit, associated with poets such as John Donne and George Herbert, which links disparate domains—such as the spiritual and the mechanical—through intricate wit and paradox. Classic examples include Donne’s compass conceit in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, which uses a compass to describe the fidelity of lovers who remain connected across distance, and the flea conceit, which argues a union of bodies through a tiny insect. Petrarchan conceits, popular in Renaissance love poetry, likewise rely on extended, highly metaphorical conceits to express emotion.

In ordinary usage, conceit can also mean a favorable opinion of one’s own abilities or worth, i.e., vanity or self-importance. A conceited person is overly proud or opinionated about themselves. The two senses are distinct but related etymologically, with the literary sense emphasizing imaginative conceiving, and the personal sense emphasizing self-regard.

Related terms include metaphor, extended metaphor, and vanity.