Both Uses of
conceit
in
Romeo and Juliet
- Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.†p. 118.4 *conceit = excessive pride
- Or, if I live, is it not very like
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,—
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for this many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort;—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking,—what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad;—
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?†p. 202.4
Definitions:
-
(1)
(conceit as in: confident, but not conceited) feelings of excessive pride
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Much less commonly and archaically, conceit can mean to conceive.