a. Also 6–7 conceiveable. [f. CONCEIVE v. + -ABLE.]
† 1. That can be received or taken in. Obs. (Cf. CONCEIVE 5, quot. 1587.)
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad. (1589), I. 71. That … we might finde therein apt and conceiveable foode.
2. That can be conceived, imagined, or thought of; imaginable, supposable.
Often (like imaginable) an emphatic equivalent for ‘just credible,’ ‘at all credible’ (of statements, etc.); also used to strengthen all, any, etc., in the sense ‘all or any that can be even imagined or thought of’; cf. ‘any mortal thing.’
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xxi. 157. That he remained ignorant of this account it is not easily conceivable.
1656. trans. Hobbes’ Elem. Philos. (1839), 8. Such things as have some conceivable cause.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xxvii. (1819), 481. A particle … minuter than all assignable, all conceivable dimension.
1858. Mansel, Bampton Lect., ii. (ed. 4), 32. Consciousness … is only conceivable as a relation.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. vi. 450. It is just conceivable that Duncan refused homage to Cnut.
1879. McCarthy, Own Times, II. xxviii. 327. He never seemed to have a moment’s doubt on any conceivable question.
b. as sb. A conceivable thing.
1659. H. More, Immort. Soul (1662), 61. These are the first conceivables in Matter.
1865. Mill, Exam. Hamilton, 64. Inconceivables are incessantly becoming Conceivables as our experience becomes enlarged.
