v. Obs. [f. FORE- pref.] trans. To conceive beforehand, to preconceive.
1553. Grimalde, trans. Cicero’s Offices (1556), 31 b. The other proceedes of a greate witt, to fore conceiue in minde thinges to comme.
1597. Bacon, Coulers Good & Evill (Arb.), 149. If it [euill] come by humane iniurie, eyther by indignation and meditating of reuenge from our selues, or by expecting or foreconceyuing that Nemesis and retribution will take holde of the authours of our hurt, or if it bee by fortune or accident, yet there is left a kinde of expostulation against the diuine powers.
1628. Bp. Hall, trans. Rotomagensis Anon., Wks. 815. Which He willed not from euerlasting, and hath foreconceiued in His certaine and vnchangeable decree.
1659. Torriano, Premeditáre, to forethink, to fore-conceive in mind.
Hence Foreconceived ppl. a.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., III. 175. The foundation hereof is a foreconceiued perswasion of the truthe of God.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, VIII. lxxiii.
| Not publike losse of their beloued knight, | |
| Alone stirr’d vp their rage and wrath vntamed, | |
| But fore-conceiued greefes, and quarrels light, | |
| Their ire still nourished, and still enflamed. |
1662. Glanvill, Lux Orientalis, xi. (1682), 88. Nor would our School-Doctors have thought it so much a stranger to the New, had it had the luck to have been one of their opinions, or did they not too frequently apply the sacred Oracles to their own foreconceived notions.
