Incept
verb
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To take in or ingest. transitive
- 2 To begin. transitive
"The company was incepted in 2006."
- 3 To accept or to be accepted to the Master of Arts degree at Oxford or Cambridge University. UK, ambitransitive
- 4 To put an idea into a person's mind so deeply that they believe it was their own. transitive
"Is the idea really yours? Or was it incepted into your mind by your friend?"
Example
More examples"The company was incepted in 2006."
Etymology
* Originally borrowed from Latin inceptus, past participle of incipio. The term is marked "obsolete" in the first edition of the OED (1905); newer usage is a back-formation from inception. * (put an idea into someone's mind): Inspired by the film Inception (2010).
Related phrases
More for "incept"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.