Conceptual

//kənˈsɛp.t͡ʃu.əl// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, or relating to concepts or mental conception.

    "The repeated exposure, over decades, to most taxa here treated has resulted in repeated modifications of both diagnoses and discussions, as initial ideas of the various taxa underwent—often repeated—conceptual modification."

  2. 2
    Existing only in the imagination.

    "We defined a conceptual model before designing the real thing."

  3. 3
    Of or relating to conceptualism.
Adjective
  1. 1
    being or characterized by concepts or their formation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
idealnotionalabstractbrightcerebralcogitative

Example

More examples

"Perception is based, to a very large extent, on conceptual models - which are always inadequate, often incomplete and sometimes profoundly wrong."

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin conceptuālis, from Latin conceptus, perfect passive participle of concipiō (“take hold of; conceive”); see concept and -al.

Related phrases

conceptual analysisconceptual artconceptual definitionconceptual engineeringconceptual fallacyconceptual graphconceptual inverseconceptual metaphorconceptual networkconceptual physicsconceptual schema

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.