concept (English)

Where does "concept" come from?

The English word 'concept' entered the language as a borrowing from Middle French 'concept'[1]. This term traces back to the Latin 'conceptus', which functioned as a past participle meaning 'a thought, purpose, or conceiving'[1][2]. The Latin source 'conceptus' itself derives from the verb 'concipiō', meaning 'to take in' or 'to conceive'[1][2]. This verb is built from the prefix 'con-' and the root 'capiō', the latter of which is anchored in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root '*kap-', meaning 'to seize'[3]. The word is recognized as a doublet of 'conceit' and 'concetto'.

Open questions

The Proto-Indo-European root *kap- may be a non-Indo-European loanword or potentially onomatopoeic in origin. [3]

Full etymology tree

concept (English), 'An abstract and general idea; an abstraction.'
- borrowed concept (Middle French)
  - inherited conceptus (Latin), 'received, caught'
    - derived concipio (Latin), 'to receive or catch, grasp'
      - compound con- (Latin), 'Used in compounds to indicate a being or bringing together of several objects'
      - compound capio (Latin), 'to take, to capture, to catch, to seize, to take captive, to storm'
        inherited *kap- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to seize, to grab'

Ancestors

*kap- (Proto-Indo-European)
conceptus (Latin)

Cognates and doublets

conceit (English)
concetto (English)

Descendants and derived words

closed-concept (English)
concept album (English)
concept art (English)
concept artist (English)
concept car (English)
concept drift (English)
conceptious (English)
conceptless (English)
concept map (English)
concept of operations (English)
conceptor (English)
concept video (English)

Sources

Updated August 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris